By Anthony O. Goriainoff

N4 Pharma PLC said Monday that it will focus its resources on advancing its work on gene therapy, and that it will continue its vaccine-delivery efforts in conjunction with partners and working on specific proprietary products.

The AIM-listed pharmaceutical company said the preliminary results from mouse immunogenicity studies carried out by Evotec SE using Covid-19 didn't show meaningful immunological response, and that this brought into question the whole study. The company said it will concentrate future vaccine work through its material transfer agreements [MTA] and that it was in advanced discussions with another company focusing on mRNA delivery with a view to scoping the work to be undertaken under a new MTA.

The company said that although the results on the vaccine work from Evotec were unexpected, the proof-of-concept data collated to date has been sufficient to allow it to sign MTAs with potential vaccine collaborators.

"We expect other collaborations will follow, so it makes sense to continue the vaccine platform optimization with collaborators who own their own DNA plasmids and mRNA compounds. This will allow us to focus internal efforts on developing commercial products in the gene therapy space," Chief Executive Nigel Theobald said.

Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com

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N4 Pharma to Focus Resources on Advancing Gene Therapy Work - MarketWatch