Biotech Starpharma has expanded its agreement with AstraZeneca for the global pharmaceutical giant to use Starpharma's dendrimer drug delivery technology in the development of new cancer treatments.
The new agreement follows on from AstraZeneca's evaluation of Starpharma's technology in September 2012.
Under the new deal, Starpharma will apply its technology to improve cancer drugs from AstraZeneca's development pipeline.
AstraZeneca will provide funding for Starpharma to develop the dendrimer-enhanced drugs.
Starpharma chief executive Dr Jackie Fairley said the agreement does not yet involve milestone payments to Starpharma but allows the company's technology to be applied to a broader range of drugs.
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"It also means that we and our shareholders do not need to invest in all of the commercial opportunities to which our technology is applied," Dr Fairley said on Monday.
"We get to have the benefit of having that commercial exposure but without needing to fund that ourselves."
Starpharma uses its dendrimer technology to improve the performance of pharmaceuticals, for example, to protect against the side-effects of cancer drugs on bone marrow.
Dendrimers are a type of synthetic nano-scale polymer that is highly regular in size and structure.
Shares in Starpharma were steady at 75 cents.
