BresaGen develops US opportunities

BresaGen, based in Adelaide, Australia, who are known best for the development of protein pharmaceuticals and embryonic stem (ES) cell therapy research is to raise finance in the US and subsequently to restructure its operations.

According to BresaGen president and ceo, Dr John Smeaton, the main drivers have been the larger and more sophisticated biotechnology investment environment for Protein Pharmaceuticals and the significantly more attractive government funding opportunities for embryonic stem cell therapy in the US. 'We remain a proudly Australian company but BresaGen must look outside Australia for future raisings,' he said.

The protein pharmaceuticals division will be spun out into a separate US-headquartered company. It will exploit BresaGen's expertise, technology and intellectual property to address the emerging and highly favoured Biogeneric space.

In addition, the company will acquire drug delivery technology to differentiate products and provide a competitive advantage in the market. The company's initiatives will include the development and commercialisation of two peptide opportunities - one as a generic product and the other as a generic drug in a novel drug delivery device.

Device and formulation development, regulatory affairs, management and business development will be based in the US, while drug development, research and manufacturing will be based in Adelaide.

'Under this new structure, I am confident that the protein pharmaceutical company will gain considerable value as we achieve registration of drug products including the two newly identified peptide opportunities which are compatible with our manufacturing skills,' said Dr Smeaton.

The cell therapy division will gradually relocate to the US to become part of new partnership arrangements that attract both public and private funding. The US NIH has already awarded BresaGen major grant funding and other grants are anticipated in the next few months. The company is currently in discussions with several other companies with complementary interests in the ES cell field and the cell delivery and imaging fields that are intended to broaden the company's opportunity in the cell therapy arena while offering nearer term commercial returns.

Dr Smeaton said: 'The cell therapy assets still require significant additional capital and intellectual input in order to realise their commercial potential and by changing the way the program is funded there is increased probability for BresaGen's shareholders to retain the potential upside and receive the benefit of our successes in this field.'

Upon completion of the restructure BresaGen will act as a holding company, with its principal assets being its holdings in the US based protein and stem cell companies.

BresaGen's reproductive biotechnology programme, which has been working on development of transgenic and animal cloning technology, will be transferred to the University of Adelaide. BresaGen will retain an interest in the commercial outcomes of the program through its participation in BresaGen Xenograft Marketing, which holds the intellectual property rights generated by the programme.