Pharming Receives Funding For Development Of New Treatments For Premature Ageing Diseases
Leiden, The Netherlands, January 28, 2008. Biotech company Pharming Group NV (“Pharmingâ€) (NYSE Euronext: PHARM) announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary DNage will head a collaborative Research and Development effort to identify novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets, and to develop therapeutics for the treatment of premature ageing diseases. The consortium has been granted a SenterNovem subsidy of € 905.000 for a period of three years.
Under an International Innovation Subsidy granted by SenterNovem, an agency of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, DNage has initiated a project with the Eberhard Karls University in Tubingen Germany, and Pyxis Discovery BV, to design new drug development tools aimed at discovery of new therapeutics to treat (premature) ageing diseases. In addition, DNage will collaborate with the Leiden University Medical Center to identify unique biomarkers of such diseases that will facilitate the clinical development of new therapies.
The Company has filed several patent-applications based on the work performed in this field during the past few years. It expects that this additional funding will accelerate its drug development program which involves the start of a clinical program later this year to test a new product (Prodarsan®) for the treatment of premature ageing diseases.
About Pharming Group NV
Pharming Group NV is developing innovative products for the treatment of genetic disorders, ageing diseases, specialty products for surgical indications, intermediates for various applications and nutritional products. Pharming has two products in late stage development - Rhucin® (recombinant human C1 inhibitor) for Hereditary Angioedema and human lactoferrin for use in food products. The advanced technologies of the Company include innovative platforms for the production of protein therapeutics, technology and processes for the purification and formulation of these products, as well as technologies in the field of tissue repair (via its collaboration with Novathera) and DNA repair (via DNage). Additional information is available on the Pharming website, www.pharming.com and on www.dnage.nl.
About SenterNovem
SenterNovem, an agency of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, promotes sustainable development and innovation and aims to achieve tangible results that have a positive effect on the economy and on society as a whole. International projects are coordinated by SenterNovem in collaboration with Eureka, a network that aims to enhance European competitiveness through its support to companies, research centres and universities who carry out pan-European projects to develop innovative products, processes and services. Founded in 1985, Eureka currently counts 38 member countries and supports hundreds of individual projects with an average yearly industrial investment in excess of €1 billion. Additional information is available on www.senternovem.nl and www.eureka.be.
This press release contains forward looking statements that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward looking statements. The press release also appears in Dutch. In the event of any inconsistency, the English version will prevail over the Dutch version.