“We’re delighted to have gotten to this point,” says Starpharma boss Jackie Fairley.Credit:Justin McManus.
“It’s been a pretty frenetic 12 months,and we’re delighted to have gotten to this point,” she said. “Clearly this market[Britain] is a very large market - this is a broad spectrum antiviral and it’s a product that has applications more broadly. The UK is currently locked down and will be emerging in a couple of weeks. This[deal] achieves a very high level of distribution through that market rapidly.”
The move makes Starpharma the first ASX-listed biotech to bring a COVID-19 preventative product to a global retail market. It comes after a year in which almost every drug developer around the world has tried to pivot its treatments towards the virus.
Starpharma’s shares opened 3.5 per cent stronger on the news and finished Thursday’s session up 2.5 per cent at $2.08.
Starpharma started work onViraleze around a year ago,convinced that SPL7013,the active antiviral compound that it already uses in registered antiviral condoms and sexual health products,could prove useful in stopping SARS-CoV-2 in its tracks.
Unlike vaccines for coronavirus,Viraleze has not gone through large-scale human trials and instead has been tested in the laboratory for its effectiveness. The company has been able to launch the product quickly because the active ingredients have already been reviewed and registered for use in Europe.
The company says the product is a “broad spectrum antiviral” spray that has been shown to inactivate 99.99 per cent of the virus that causes COVID-19 in lab studies.