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Building bio business
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Professor
Peter Andrews is Co-Director of the Institute of Molecular Bioscience
at The University of Queensland and CEO of its commercialisation arm,
IMBcom Pty Ltd. He is also director of Alchemia Pty Ltd, Xenome Ltd
and Protagonist Ltd, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technical
Sciences and Engineering and President of the Asian Federation of
Medicinal Chemistry. Professor Andrews is an active promoter of the
benefits of closer interactions between public sector research organisations
and industry and has been at the forefront of initiatives to foster
the development of new industries based on Australia's high quality
research. Professor Andrews has worked in the field of drug design
for more than 25 years. Biotechnology has existed, in the form of brewing and other fermentation processes, for around 4000 years, but its real claim to fame began with the discovery of genetic engineering techniques in the 1970s, and culminated in the sequencing of the entire human genome earlier this year (2001).
Today, the role of biotechnology is all-pervasive, with its applications extending from food to medicine, and energy to the environment. We are living through the genomics revolution and the 21st Century has already been aptly named "the Biotechnology Century".
The University of Queensland is at the forefront of this revolution. The faculties of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Health Sciences, and Natural Resources, Agriculture and Veterinary Science have all made major contributions to the fundamental sciences which underpin biotechnology.
These strengths have been boosted dramatically by the State Government's contribution of almost $100 million towards the establishment and operation of the University's new Institute for Molecular Bioscience and a further $20 million commitment to the establishment of an Institute in Biomaterials and Nano Applications.
All of this activity is stimulated by the opportunity to build new industries based on our abundant scientific and natural resources.
Australia accounts for three percent of the world's best science, but has been slow to exploit this by not developing knowledge-based industries.
Fortunately, this is changing, with UQ in particular, building a pipeline of exciting new biotechnology start-ups.
Let me give you thumbnail sketches of a few.
Xenome Ltd is an unlisted public company developing novel pharmaceuticals from the venoms of Australian marine and land animals. Although the venoms of snakes, spiders and other venomous animals are clearly designed to kill, the individual components of these venoms have an exceptionally broad range of clinical applications. These include chronic pain, stroke, epilepsy, cardiovascular disease and cognitive and mood disorders.
One such drug discovered in the venom of a marine cone snail by Xenome founders and their colleagues at the IMB, has been licensed to Australian pharmaceutical company Amrad for clinical trials as a pain therapeutic. Other lead molecules with novel pharmacological activities are currently progressing through Xenome's pipeline. On the basis of this research, Xenome has attracted venture capital investors, won an Australian Government Start grant of $1.6 million, hired staff and established off-campus laboratories.
Nanomics BioSystems Pty Ltd is a new biotechnology start-up company focused on commercialising a remarkable platform technology which spans the fields of genomics, proteomics, drug discovery, and human diagnostics.
The technology was developed by founder Associate Professor Matt Trau and his colleagues in the Nanotechnology and Biomaterials Centre from the School of Molecular and Microbial Sciences. It provides a unique method for barcoding libraries of tiny silicon beads with labels identifying individual chemicals attached to their surfaces. Potential applications include rapid DNA sequencing, comparative genomics, genetic screening, pharmacogenomics, and combinatorial drug discovery. Nanomics is currently working with a number of potential business and investment partners to maximise the company's ability to exploit this exciting range of opportunities.
Coridon Pty Ltd holds the exclusive rights to intellectual property that forms the basis for novel second-generation genomics. The core technology, developed by Professor Ian Frazer and his colleagues at the Centre of Immunology and Cancer Research, provides a method for achieving gene expression within particular tissues, either human or plant, or within cells in a particular state of differentiation. Coridon is engaged in the development of specific products using this technology platform, as well as providing a service to companies keen to achieve targeted protein expression efficiencies. The company has recently secured a $5 million investment in the development of a specific therapeutic product utilising the platform.
These are just a few of the biotechnology companies currently emerging from the University. Others associated with IMB include spin-offs with platform technologies for the development of cytokine mimetics (Protagonist), peptide analogues (Betametics), crop-protectants (Kalthera) and anti-inflammatory drugs (Promics).
In the Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences, three new companies established over the past year will exploit novel technologies for growing artificial arteries (VasCam), manipulating gene expression in animal and plant cells (GeneDimmer), and the diagnosis of bipolar disorder (Bireme). There are a host more in the pipeline.
So what's driving these developments?
In each case, the prime movers have been entrepeneurial researchers who want to see economic returns to themselves, the University and Australia resulting from their research. Their entrepeneurial efforts have been backed by the University's commercialisation company, UniQuest, and more recently by IMBcom, which has been set up specifically to identify and nurture new biotechnology companies from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience. Similar operations are being established by UniQuest in several University faculties.
The other key driver is the availability of venture capital. In the past, private equity investment for early stage companies has been hard to find in Australia, but over the past few years we have seen the emergence of two major Federal Government initiatives, Innovation Investment Funds and Pooled Development Funds, both designed to encourage our nascent venture capital industry. Already, many of these funds are making investments in the range of $2-4 million in UQ companies.
Even more important for University researchers is the availability of so-called pre-seed funding: investments of $50,000 to $500,000 that can be applied to proving concepts, taking out patents and preparing business plans. These need to be in place to attract serious venture capital, but are rarely affordable by university researchers.
One of the first companies to invest at this level is UniSeed, a $20 million pre-seed fund which has been established jointly by UQ and the University of Melbourne under the leadership of former UniQuest CEO, Dr David Evans.
At BIO-2001, the annual meeting of the US-based Biotechnology Industry Organisation, the Queensland Government took the opportunity to announce a $15 million Queensland Biodiscovery Fund to help the discovery of new drugs and other bioproducts from Queensland's biodiversity and a further $6 million Smart State program to encourage and support Queensland biotechnology start-up companies.
Where will it all end? As Premier Peter Beattie told the international audience of scientists, industrialists, investors and government officials in San Diego, these are the building blocks of future technologies that will drive employment opportunities in Queensland and Australia in the years ahead.
On this site
- Home
- Discovery at UQ and Highlights
- Archived highlights
- Research Highlights - 2001
- Building bio business
