What if I told you there was company out there that has a simple cream that can prevent HIV transmission as well as every other sexually transmitted disease and is safer and more effective than any other medicine available? Or that this little biotech also works with major pharmaceutical companies to explore — using its unique, breakthrough technology — other medical fields like diabetes, cancer and heart disease?
I’m guessing you’d ask me for the name of the company, which is Starpharma Holdings Limited (ADR) (SPHRY).
Australia-based Starpharma has been around a long time, with an even older story. However, only recently has SPHRY technology — nanotechnology, to be specific — caught up with this compelling theory of “dendrimers” to make this a major, profitable product line for Starpharma.
By building drugs from the atom up, we can create far safer and efficient medications. For example, imagine chemotherapy that’s directly applied to a tumor and that delivered a dose of the drug over time only to the tumor area — not the whole body, destroying the patient’s immune system in the process. Far more efficient and effective.
SPHRY already has a product — VivaGel — that’s in use in Australia and New Zealand and will soon be available in Japan.
But Starpharma isn’t selling milk here; it’s selling the cow. It’s Starpharma’s unique drug delivery system that is Starpharma’s key selling point. It’s a platform that can be used to deliver almost anything, efficiently, safely and effectively. And now that the product is in the marketplace, SPHRY has turned an important corner.
But before we go down that road, a bit of background on SPHRY’s fascinating technology.
What’s a Dendrimer?
Dendrimer, from the Greek word (dendron) for tree, refers to a synthetic, three-dimensional molecule with branching parts. Dendrimers are formed using a nanoscale, multi-step fabrication process. Each step results in a new “generation” that has twice the complexity of the previous generation. A first-generation dendrimer is the simplest, a 10th-generation dendrimer is the most complex and can take months to engineer.
Dendrimer research has been slowly but steadily gaining ground since the late 1970s, when scientists like Fritz Vögtle, at the University of Bonn in Germany, and Donald A. Tomalia, then working for Dow Chemical in Midland, Mich., started to build the first of these branching molecules. Tomalia is credited with the first dendrimer in 1979.
Dendrimers are “stealth molecules” that have many potential applications, including diagnostic and therapeutic applications. They’re even being used for creating more efficient solar energy.
Dendrimers can easily move across biological membranes, and they can store a wide range of metals, organic or inorganic molecules among their branches. Companies developing these synthetic molecules claim that most dendrimers don’t trigger the immune system when injected or used topically, and have low toxicity to cells.
Tomolia was such a believer in dendrimers that he founded Michgan-based Dendritic Nanotechnologies (DNT) and began developing and commercializing the Starburst or Pamam family of dendrimers.
Investing in Dendrimers
Now, dendrimers are popping up in industries from drug delivery to agrochemicals to animal health to coatings and cosmetics to solar power to water treatment.
And the leader in the field is Starpharma.
About five years ago, Starpharma bought DNT. Now, SPHRY has an in-house dendrimer manufacturer that can build the dendrimers it uses for its applications while also getting a revenue stream from the various lines of dendrimers and kits DNT sells to firms like healthcare giant Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK).
Investigators at Wayne State University have found that attaching the widely used cancer drug methotrexate to a dendrimer nanoparticle can overcome the resistance some cancer cells develop toward this drug.
And Starpharma has its own proprietary dendrimer product which is showing great promise in medical Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials in the U.S. — VivaGel.
The active ingredient of VivaGel is the proprietary dendrimer, SPL7013, which has been shown in scientific studies to inhibit infection with viruses, including HIV and the genital herpes virus, and the growth of bacteria. Several clinical studies have successfully tested the safety and efficacy of VivaGel.
Starpharma also has signed licensing agreements with condom manufacturer Ansell Ltd SP ADR (ANSLY) to develop a VivaGel-coated antiviral condom and a license agreement with Okamoto Industries for a VivaGel-coated condom for the Japanese market. Okamoto is the market leader for condoms sold in Japan, which is the world’s second largest condom market. Starpharma will receive royalties and other payments from the agreements, and the coated condoms will carry the VivaGel brand.
VivaGel condoms are already available in Australia and New Zealand and will be available in Japan once it gets through a classification review.
And now that Starpharma has shown proof of concept, major players are interested in conducting studies using dendrimers for heart disease, diabetes and other applications. And that only speaks to the healthcare space.
The myriad uses of dendrimers are finally coming into focus, and Starpharma will be a global leader in this field. As with most small biotech companies, SPHRY stock has seen good days and bad days on a regular basis. Still, SPHRY has hung around and has major partners and a big future ahead. Buy Starpharma stock below $6.
As of this writing, Gregg Early did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
