STC Biologics will also receive US$2 million from Ligacept LLC, another US-based biotechnology company, who is collaborating with STC Biologics on developing targeted drug assets, with an emphasis on oncology.

STC Biologics has been working on STC101 for some time already and was awarded its first contract from NCI to develop the biosimilar in July 2010. This latest contract, and the cash from Ligacept LLC, will allow the company to complete manufacturing scale-up and start clinical activities for STC101 by the end of the third quarter of 2013. The company is also currently in talks with pharmaceutical companies to find further partners to complete the clinical development of STC101.

The company’s strategy for biosimilars is to develop high fidelity copies of brand-name drugs through utilisation of STC Biologic’s proprietary gSAR (glycostructure activity relationship) platform and process development, which minimises biologically relevant differences between different drug samples, i.e. between reference product and biosimilar or lot-to-lot. STC Biologics currently has three products in development: two biosimilar mAbs and a novel Alzheimer’s biological.

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