N4 Pharma PLC on Monday announced the successful oral administration of Nuvec with a DNA plasmid after receiving promising results from its research programme with the University of Queensland.

N4 Pharma shares rose 35% to 1.04 pence each in London on Monday afternoon.

N4 is a Derbyshire, England-based pharmaceutical company focused on the development of a novel silica nanoparticle delivery system, known as Nuvec, for vaccines and therapeutics for licensing to pharmaceutical and biotech partners.

N4 said that the Nuvec was ‘administered by enteric coated capsule and the contents, having been released in the intestinal lumen, were taken up by intestinal cells, with successful transfection and release of the newly synthesized ovalbumin.’

Studies conducted earlier this year showed that a capsule containing Nuvec loaded with a DNA plasmid for ovalbumin was administered, whereby protein expression was observed after three days. A more recent experiment, in which an additional second capsule was administered on day three, resulted in a much higher peak level of expression on days four to seven, N4 said.

Chief Executive Officer Nigel Theobald said: ‘This continued success shows that Nuvec has the potential to be successfully used as an oral delivery system with many potential applications such as a vaccine, a product for irritable bowel disease or to treat colonic cancer among many possible examples. Given the complexities involved in oral delivery this early success with Nuvec represents a potentially massive opportunity and point of difference for Nuvec and its use as delivery system to target multiple diseases.’

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