Evaluation Agreement with Imperial College London

ValiRx plc (the "Company") (AIM: VAL), a life sciences company focusing on early-stage cancer therapeutics and women's health, is pleased to announce signature of an evaluation agreement with Imperial College London (the "Agreement"). This agreement enables ValiRx to evaluate research relating to novel therapeutic candidates for cancer treatment.

The Agreement specifically focuses on investigating a lead series of dual-kinase inhibitor candidates that show promise in reversing resistance to current standard of care therapeutics in ovarian and other types of cancer. Importantly, a similar approach has already been validated in clinical studies with other assets across a range of tumour types and it holds significant potential as a novel combination treatment.

This project builds upon previous ground-breaking research led by Dr Paula Cunnea, Group Leader at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, Division of Cancer, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and the previous Imperial College Drug Discovery Centre.

The evaluation process for this project is expected to take approximately 12 months, with the lead series scrutinised for mechanism of action and anti-cancer activity in combination with standard of care treatments in the Inaphaea BioLabs facility and will draw upon the skills of external collaborators. Upon the conclusion of the evaluation, if milestones are met, the project will be considered for in-licensing on pre-agreed terms. This signifies an exciting opportunity for ValiRx to further expand its portfolio of innovative cancer therapeutics.

Dr Suzy Dilly, CEO of ValiRx commented: "I'm delighted to announce the start of our second new evaluation project for 2024 with the signature of this agreement with Imperial College London. The scientific developments in this project display a high degree of quality and innovation with potential application in an exciting area of research."

Dr Cathy Tralau-Stewart, CSO of ValiRx explains: "I am excited to initiate the Agreement with Imperial College London, in an area which I have been involved in for some time and which I believe has the potential to translate to the clinic efficiently. This evaluation agreement is a further step-forward in developing ValiRx's drug discovery pipeline. This is the third evaluation agreement signed in the last four months building a risk-balanced evaluation portfolio which includes early novel approaches for cancer and later stage pre-clinical approaches which have some clinical validation."

Dr Paula Cunnea, Advanced Research Fellow, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London: "We are entering an exciting new phase in partnership with ValiRx to further develop our dual kinase inhibitor drug programme and unlock the real potential of these novel candidates to combat resistance and enhance therapeutic options for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Together, we will seek to deliver a clinical candidate that we hope will alleviate the suffering of women and their families from this devastating disease."

Imperial College London is a global top ten university with a world-class reputation. Imperial's 22,000 students and 8,000 staff are working to solve the biggest challenges in science, medicine, engineering and business.

Imperial ranks sixth in the 2024 QS World University Rankings and eighth in the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) found that it has a greater proportion of world-leading research than any other UK university. It also received a Gold Award in the 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Imperial was named University of the Year in the Daily Mail University Guide 2024, University of the Year for Graduate Employment in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024, and awarded a Queen's Anniversary Prize for its COVID-19 response.