Poolbeg Pharma plc

Poolbeg Pharma Partners with a Nasdaq-Listed Biopharma Company on its Oral Delivery Platform

Strategic collaboration focussed on the development of an optimised drug for a metabolic condition using Poolbeg's licensed oral delivery technology

Collaboration may expand to a full licensing agreement

17 October 2023 - Poolbeg Pharma (AIM: POLB, OTCQB: POLBF, 'Poolbeg' or the 'Company'), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company targeting diseases with a high unmet medical need, announces that it has signed a strategic collaboration agreement with a Nasdaq listed biopharma company for the development of an optimised oral drug to treat a metabolic condition.

Under the agreement, the Company will receive funding to work with its new partner to produce a prototype drug utilising Poolbeg's licensed oral delivery technology*. Poolbeg believes that this technology can help to optimise the delivery of its partner's novel drug to its ideal site of therapeutic action.

The Company is optimistic that this strategic collaboration can progress to a full licensing agreement in time, whereby the Nasdaq listed biopharma could integrate this novel oral delivery technology into its pipeline.

This marks another significant milestone in Poolbeg's journey towards early revenues and underscores the Company's commitment to advancing treatments for metabolic conditions.

* Poolbeg has an exclusive licence to patented oral delivery technologies for all metabolic conditions and is utilising the same technology for its Oral GLP-1 agonist programme.

Jeremy Skillington, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Poolbeg Pharma, said: "Our partner recognises the benefits of Poolbeg's licensed oral delivery technology and we look forward to optimising the development of this innovative drug for patients in an area where there is a clear unmet need. We are optimistic that this strategic collaboration has the potential to progress to a full licensing agreement."

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About Poolbeg Pharma

Poolbeg Pharma specialises in the development of innovative medicines to address the unmet need in infectious and other prevalent diseases. Poolbeg Pharma has a disciplined portfolio approach to mitigate risk, accelerate drug development, and enhance investor returns. The Company simultaneously advances multiple programmes in cost-effective clinical trials, rapidly generating early human safety and efficacy data to enable early partnering / out-licensing, with the funds generated reinvested in the pipeline. Poolbeg Pharma also uses AI to interrogate human challenge trial data sets to quickly identify new targets and drugs, leading to faster development and greater commercial appeal.

The Company is targeting the growing infectious disease market. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, infectious disease has become one of the fastest growing pharma markets and is expected to exceed $250bn by 2025. Through opportunistic identification of assets which complement Poolbeg Pharma's existing pipeline, the Company is progressing programmes in oncology and metabolic syndromes; adding disease areas with significant addressable markets.

With its initial assets from hVIVO plc, an industry leading infectious disease and human challenge trials business, Poolbeg Pharma has access to knowledge, experience, and clinical data from over 20 years of human challenge trials. The Company is using these insights to acquire new assets as well as reposition clinical stage products, reducing spend and risk. Amongst its portfolio of exciting assets, Poolbeg Pharma has a small molecule immunomodulator for severe influenza and other acute inflammatory conditions (POLB 001) which produces a highly significant reduction in p38 MAP kinase driven cytokines in a clinical setting; a first-in-class, intranasally administered RNA-based immunotherapy for respiratory virus infections (POLB 002); and a vaccine candidate for Melioidosis (POLB 003). The Company is progressing two Artificial Intelligence (AI) Programmes to add promising new assets to its pipeline as well as developing an Oral Vaccine Programme and utilising its licensed Oral Delivery Platform to target metabolic conditions.

For more information, please go to www.poolbegpharma.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn @PoolbegPharma.