May 4, 2007 — /PRNewswire/ — OXFORD, UNITED KINGDOM — Midatech Group Ltd., a world leader in the production and application of nanoparticles for therapeutic and diagnostic applications, has announced the opening of its specialist design and manufacturing facility for cGMP grade nanoparticles in Bilbao, Spain. Midatech Biogune S.L. is the world’s first cGMP grade manufacturing plant for the production of nanoparticles at a scale commensurate with pharmaceutical applications.

Staffed by an experienced, multi-disciplined team, the plant will initially focus on the design and manufacture of nanoparticles to supply Midatech Group’s series of projects applying nanotechnology for therapeutic purposes. These include using nanoparticles as scaffolds for synthetic vaccines and antibiotics, as drug delivery vehicles for RNAi drugs and drugs able to cross the blood brain barrier, as well as targeted cancer treatments and imaging agents. Midatech’s nanoparticles will allow drug companies to deliver new and existing medicines at significantly lower doses and with greater specificity, thereby reducing toxicity.

Speaking on the opening, managing director of Biogune Justin Barry stated, “We are delighted to launch the new facility in the dynamic environment of the Zamudio Science Park. We are very proud of the capabilities and future potential of the site which represent a real step forward in realizing the potential of nanoparticles for medical advancement. We would like to thank both the Basque regional government and the Zamudio Science Park whose support and dedication has been invaluable in helping us to realise our objective.”

Midatech Biogune will be exhibiting at the upcoming BIO Boston conference, May 6-9 in Boston, MA, at booth number 1087 in the Spain pavilion.

About Midatech Biogune S.L.
Midatech Biogune S.L. is a state-of-the-art facility for the design and manufacture of glyconanoparticles to cGMP standards. The facility, which opened in March 2007, is situated in Bilbao, Spain, and is part of Midatech Group Ltd, a company dedicated to developing its glyconanoparticles for a wide range of therapeutic applications.

About Midatech Group
Midatech Group Ltd. is a world leader in the design, synthesis, and manufacture of biocompatible nanoparticles. These nanoparticles can be used to create a wide variety of products with novel characteristics, functions and applications that have the potential for multiple diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The creation of the Midatech Biogune plant is a key part of the business strategy.

Created in 2000, Midatech has IP covering design, manufacture, and application/use of nanoparticles in both diagnostic and therapeutic pharmaceutical areas. As well as in-house product development, it is prepared to license this IP to third-party pharmaceutical and diagnostic development partners while retaining manufacturing rights. Midatech has exclusive world-wide rights for technology relating to the synthesis and applications of self-assembling nanoparticles.

The Technology
Midatech’s biocompatible nanoparticles possess a number of unique properties that make them ideal for therapeutics, diagnostics and other enabling applications.

• Nanoparticles are water soluble.
• Nanoparticles can present multiple ligands, allowing for multivalent drug or multi-drug delivery on a single particle.
• Their size enables drug delivery via different routes of administration, such as parental or intranasal. Their stability to enzymatic digestion may also permit oral therapy.
• Their outer shell (or corona) can be designed to be “stealth” (invisible to the host immune system), and are thus expected to present no immunological liability.
• Nanoparticles self-assemble in a single step chemical process. Manufacture is therefore simple, safe, scaleable and low cost.
• Nanoparticles are superparamagnetic, enabling them to be used as both non-invasive imaging agents (MRI), and as vehicles for inducing cell suicide by hysteresis heating (apoptosis caused by heating of an intracellular or cell-surface bound nanoparticle with an alternating magnetic field).

For further company information, see www.midatechgroup.com.

Source: Midatech Group Ltd