GE key to fuelling NZ's biotech growth, says US scientist

By SIMON COLLINS, Science Reporter


An American consultant brought here by the Government says it is impossible to build a biotechnology industry without genetic modification.

Dr Cindy Robbins-Roth, founder of San Francisco-based BioVenture Consultants, said in Auckland that genetic modification had taught us what caused health or disease in humans, animals and plants.

Once we understood that, we might be able to make molecules - drugs - by conventional chemical reactions without creating a genetically modified product. But the drug would hinge on understanding gained from GM work.

"What biotechnology has done is allow us to understand at a molecular level what makes certain cancer cells different from the healthy tissue in the patient, and specifically design drugs that will only go after cells that have that difference," she said.

"You can't do that without using the tools of biotechnology. You just can't."

Robbins-Roth was brought to New Zealand under the World Class New Zealanders scheme run by NZ Trade and Enterprise.

This year's Government-sponsored biotechnology taskforce recommended trebling the number of biotech companies to more than 1000 and boosting export earnings from $250 million to $1 billion a year.

Robbins-Roth advised biotech start-ups to build partnerships with pharmaceutical giants rather than rushing to float on the sharemarket.

"Probably in the first deal you do, you are going to give away all the market to the larger partner because you don't have the money or the expertise yourself," she said.

"If you are a successful company, with each successful deal you do you will retain more rights.

"The big company pays the little company to have commercial rights to a product being developed by the little company, because most large pharmaceutical companies have big gaps in their product pipelines.

"They have been very, very participatory. In fact, they like it better when the stockmarket is inhospitable because it's easier for them to get what they want."

She believes some US biotech start-ups went to the public markets too soon during the biotech boom of 1999-2000, because Mum-and-Dad investors often did not realise it took 10 years to bring a new drug to market.

"Biotech will go in and out of fashion. If you are interested in investing in biotech, you shouldn't be thinking about, 'Is this a boom? Is it in fashion or not?' If you are not willing to hold those stocks for a while, you shouldn't be in this sector."

She said the three-year slide in the US market began to turn around six to eight months ago. Since September there had been seven or nine biotech floats, depending on how the industry was defined. She expects more next month.

The general rule for investors was to look for companies with top-quality management and a technology supporting several products.

"If the technology supports only a single product, that is not a good risk," she said. "The probability of any one product making it all the way to the market is low.

"You want a company that has science that is able to be used to generate lots of different products."