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Cash-rich drug discoverer Proximagen, focused on Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders, has seen little reaction in the market since its recent signing of a $232m (£124m) licensing agreement.

Based around the work of pre-eminent Parkinson’s expert Professor Peter Jenner and led by entrepreneurial chief executive Ken Mulvany, Proximagen was spun out of King’s College London in 2005 by University commercialisation specialist IP Group. Its development pipeline had pumped out three drug candidates at that stage, one of which, PRX1, has just been licensed out to US pharma company Upsher-Smith.

Still in pre-clinical stages, PRX1 is a new compound that improves upon the prevailing standard treatment for Parkinson’s, levodopa. Current applications of levodopa cause the involuntary shaking most people associate with the disease and PRX1, which has successfully passed through pre-clinical models, creates much less shaking.

Mulvaney confirms Upsher-Smith, whose licensing deal is ‘structured in the typical way’, will now fund all development of the compound, with a $6m up-front equity component to be paid ‘in the near term’, milestone payments in due course, and royalties ‘up to double digits’ not included in the headline figure. Another important deal was struck back in December: a ‘partnership agreement’ with German pharma giant Boehringer-Ingelheim to apply its resources to an unspecified number of Proximagen’s novel treatments.

Half-year results to May revealed Proximagen has £6.8m of cash left in the bank, down £1.7m since the year end. With cash soon beginning to flow from Upsher-Smith, the financial future looks even more secure and Proximagen’s shares could begin to soar.

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Proximagen Neuroscience	AIM	£29.67m	137.50p	2.50p
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