Onzima Ventures Plc - Investment Update and Change of Registered Office

Onzima Ventures plc

("Onzima" or the "Company")

Investee company N4 Pharma announces latest research results for Nuvec®

Change of registered office

N4 Pharma Limited (“N4 Pharma”), in which Onzima holds a 49% equity stake, has announced that it has successfully demonstrated in-vitro transfection efficiency for its Nuvec® DNA vaccine system comparable to industry standard transfection reagents.

Its latest results show that optimised Nuvec® particles achieved 80-90% transfection efficiency in HEK 293 cells, the same levels as Lipofectamine 2000.

These results can be found here: http://www.n4pharma.co.uk/download/i/mark_dl/u/4013008883/4630405716/nuvec%20dna%20transfection%20results%201.pdf

N4 Pharma CEO Nigel Theobald commented:

“Our research on our Nuvec® particles continues to show impressive results. Lipofectamine is widely used for DNA transfection experiments as it achieves high levels of in-vitro transfection efficiency however it has been demonstrated to have negative toxic effects on cells so is not used in commercial product development for in-vivo administration.

We are continuing to build our evidence on Nuvec towards establishing its acceptability as an in-vivo delivery vector for DNA and RNA based vaccines. Our next steps are to compare the  toxicity of Nuvec® with lipofectamine® where we expect to show markedly lower toxicity of our particles making them more suitable for in-vivo use.

We are clearly able to demonstrate high transfection levels, which opens up the potential for longer term use of Nuvec® as an in-vivo transfection agent for DNA vaccines. Our R&D program is designed step by step to build the supporting case for this application for the  nuvec® system.

This latest data represents strong steady progress on the path towards commercialisation of Nuvec®. We expect further results comparing  the toxicity and transfection efficiency of Nuvec® against  a wider range of existing transfection agents in a range of  different cell types, over the next 3 or 4 months including comparison against those vectors already established for in-vivo use. ”

The Company also announces that its registered office has now changed to 6th Floor, 60 Gracechurch Street, London EC3V 0HR.

For further information please contact:  

Onzima Ventures PLC                Tel:  [phone]
Gavin Burnell, Luke Cairns

Nominated Adviser
Cairn Financial Advisers LLP              Tel:  [phone]     
Sandy Jamieson, Liam Murray

Broker
Peterhouse Corporate Finance Limited        Tel:  [phone]   
Guy Miller, Lucy Williams

Copyright r 11 PR Newswire