Under the agreement, Oxford Pharmascience will develop and commercialize various re-formulated statins, using the generic cholesterol-lowering drugs, atorvastatin and simvastatin.
In addition, Oxford has established the feasibility of the delivery system in working with cholesterol-lowering drugs and has undertaken a commercial evaluation to identify the potential for various statin products, which it is launching under its Safestat program.
Under the program, the firm plans to re-formulate atorvastatin and simvastatin into doses up to four times lower than the original dose but with the same fatty molecule lowering efficacy as the original higher dose.
Oxford Pharmascience chief executive Nigel Theobald said cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death worldwide and statins have become widely adopted as a key drug to help combat the disease.
"By reducing the dose of the drug but maintaining its efficacy our statin products look well placed to become a leading treatment as a second line intervention for cholesterol reduction," Theobald added.
"Early commercial conversations are very encouraging and we are looking to license our technology to major pharmaceutical companies to co-develop products using this technology."