Under the deal, the UK company will initially provide proof of concept formulation services for Canadian firm Verona Pharma for the preclinical development stages of its investigatory respiratory drug.
If the preclinical studies go well, Medpharm will then provide the formulation services for the clinical stages of the drug and has the capability to manufacture the drug up to Phase II, a company spokesperson told in-PharmaTechnologist.com.
The drug, currently known as RPL554, is a long-acting inhibitor of diseases such as asthma, and hay fever.
The drug formulation industry has seen a 38 per cent growth in the past five years and is expected to continue to boom, since there is now a real trend in drug companies turning to specialist formulation companies to find different ways of marketing both new and old compounds by coming up with new formulations.
Medpharm said it has been experiencing a growing business demand for topical formulations of drugs, in which it specialises.
"We define topical as skin, and anything involving the mucous membrane such as buccal, nasal and pulmonary delivery," said the spokesperson.
"As far as I am aware, there is only one other company in the US that specialises in topical drug formulation and provides the full range of services, from mathematical modelling of a drug profile, through to formulation development and optimisation and manufacturing."
Fifty per cent of the firm's business comes from North American firms such as Verona.
