ValiRx PLC (AIM:VAL) shares dropped on Friday morning as the life science company focusing on early-stage cancer therapeutics and women's health announced the ending of the evaluation agreement with Hokkaido University.
Under the agreement, ValiRx was committed to conducting a range of experiments following initial confirmation of the synthetic route and analysis and, after overcoming initial challenges in synthesis and purification of the peptide, testing has been conducted on the product.
However, the profile of the product has been found to be unsuitable for further development at this stage and the evaluation will now cease.
As agreed, the data generated under the evaluation agreement will be provided to the originating academics at Hokkaido University to enable them to optimise the molecular profile. There is no further commitment to the project by ValiRx.
In a statement, Dr Suzy Dilly, CEO of ValiRx commented: "Although it's disappointing not to be able to progress this project further, this highlights the importance of our process of evaluating academic projects prior to full in-licensing. In addition to returning the data to Hokkaido, we have made recommendations for further work, and we will be following the scientific progress of the project with interest."
Around 9.50am, ValiRx shares were down 12.4% at 8.10p.