A NORTH-EAST pharmaceutical company is planning to raise at least £3m from its Stock Market flotation to help fuel its worldwide expansion.

e-Theraputics wants to float on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) to raise money to invest in improving its drugs trials, and focus on developing treatments for disorders including depression, high cholesterol and malignant melanomas, which it believes have not yet been tackled effectively by rival drug firms.

And the Newcastle-based company hopes its listing will help it tap into the lucrative US and Canadian market, where it plans to set up a base, in Vancouver. It already has offices in China and India.

e-Theraputics plans to float on the AIM later this year, with a market value of £35m, and aims to raise an initial £3m.

The money will be invested in improving the firm's computation systems biology machine, which tells scientists whether newly-developed drugs are safe to test on people, and will increase the accuracy and speed of trials.

Earlier this year, e-Theraputics revealed plans to push its present £1m annual revenue into hundreds of millions of pounds after securing seven-figure investment to allow it to test drugs it has discovered - including three that kill hospital superbug MRSA.

Clinical tests of the drugs could see them launched into the marketplace for sale to hospitals throughout the world within the next three years.

Professor Malcolm Young, chief executive of e-Theraputics, said the money raised from the flotation would be another important aspect of the six-year-old company's growth.

"We are doing everything in our capability to ensure that drugs tests on humans are as safe as possible," he said. "Our aim is to have the majority of drugs which address seemingly 'incurable diseases' to have been tested by us. Our worldwide expansion is very much part of this aim."

e-Theraputics was launched in 2001 by Professor Young, of Newcastle University, after he secured more than £10m research funding from the institution, and has since made breakthroughs in treating asthma, depression, cancer, cholesterol and diabetes.