UNC Startup Liquidia Collaborates with GSK on Product Development

Liquidia Technologies, a University of North Carolina startup company founded on the nanopartical technology discoveries of Joseph DeSimone, Ph.D., Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry at UNC and Kenan Professor of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University, and colleagues, has initiated a broad, multi-year collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). GSK has acquired exclusive rights to research and develop certain vaccine and inhaled product candidates using Liquidia’s proprietary PRINT® (Partical Replication In Non-Wetting Templates) technology. PRINT is a nanoparticle technology product development and manufacturing platform for engineering health care products.

According to the agreement, Liquidia will receive an upfront payment, comprised of cash and equity, R&D funding, as well as potential for additional licensing fees, developmental milestones and royalties. Payments to Liquidia under this collaboration could total up to several hundred million dollars. Liquidia has also retained the ability to independently develop certain respiratory and vaccine products in addition to using the PRINT platform to develop products in other therapeutic areas.

“The strength of this collaboration is based on the strong and successful heritage of GSK’s vaccine and inhaled therapy franchises and the transformative particle engineering and manufacturing capabilities of Liquidia’s PRINT technology, which, when combined, we believe will yield a next generation of life saving therapeutics,” said Neal Fowler, chief executive officer at Liquidia.