$1.67m bid to get drug on market

By PAUL PANCKHURST

Technology New Zealand's biggest research and development grant - $1.67 million - is going to an Auckland company to develop a chemical compound as a treatment for two rare genetic diseases, Huntington's Disease and Friedreich's Ataxia.

Seed venture capital company Antipodean Biotechnology is owned by investors including high-profile Auckland businessmen Gary Lane, Trevor Farmer and Colin Reynolds. The company is matching dollar for dollar the contribution from Technology New Zealand.

Two scientists working together at Otago University, Dr Mike Murphy and Professor Robin Smith, discovered and patented the compound, mitoquinone, which targets mitochondria, the main energy source of cells in the human body.

The company and the funding body see the venture as significant for New Zealand, taking a drug beyond the discovery stage.

Technology New Zealand's investment manager, Lins Kerr, said the project "links drug discovery in New Zealand with commercialisation for the first time".

Antipodean chief executive Ken Taylor said the pre-clinical development and initial human studies would be carried out in New Zealand.

"The step we're adding here is also the one that contributes the most value to the product, so that's important for New Zealand."

Antipodean will later seek an international partner to complete development and market the product.

Phase one will draw on the capabilities of a mix of research institutes, universities and private companies - including Industrial Research, Otago University, Massey University, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, and the companies Douglas Pharmaceuticals and Process Developments.

Although Murphy is now pursuing his interest in mitochondria in England - working at a Cambridge research unit headed by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dr John Walker - he is still a part of the venture.

Taylor said mitoquinone could be available to patients within two years.

Although the ambitions are big, the face of Antipodean is one man - Taylor - working out of the offices of Gary Lane's Lane Capital at Auckland's Viaduct Harbour.

Taylor is a former managing director of the New Zealand business of pharmaceutical company Roche.

Technology New Zealand is part of the Government's Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.