LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - ValiRx announced on Monday that its wholly-owned subsidiary Inaphaea BioLabs has signed an evaluation and commercial use agreement with UK-based Screenin3D.
The AIM-traded firm said the agreement would see Inaphaea provide its patient-derived cells (PDCs) for use in Screenin3D's UpScale3D lab-on-a-chip technology, which integrates advanced image analysis software.

It said the initial focus of the collaboration would be on establishing three triple-negative breast cancer in-vitro 3D tumour models, which would be offered as commercial services by both companies.

The agreement would also allow for additional PDCs from Inaphaea's collection of 66 cancer types to be incorporated at any time.

Inaphaea would receive an upfront fee of £10,000 per PDC cell line upon commercialisation of the models, while Screenin3D retained an option to acquire commercial rights related to the PDCs for future drug development.

Both companies had agreed to co-market their respective services.

The agreement was initially set for 12 months, and could be extended by mutual consent.

"We are continuously looking for commercial partners to accelerate Inaphaea's capabilities and market access," said chief executive officer Mark Eccleston.

"Screenin3D's UpScale3Dlab-on-a-chip platform and established customer base is a perfect example of technology and commercial synergy for Inaphaea's biobank of patient derived cells."

Eccleston said the firm was "looking forward" to the development of the triple-negative breast cancer models which would also be used to support ValiRx's cytolytic peptide program through its partially-owned subsidiary Cytolytix.

"The data sets generated, alongside standard of care drugs, will be used to support commercialisation of the new UpScale3D PDC models and we look forward to publishing the results with ScreenIn3D in due course."

At 1456 GMT, shares in ValiRx were up 1.33% at 0.76p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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