Grape-pest venture plans full market listing

By DANIEL RIORDAN

Biotech company Botry-Zen plans to move from the secondary market to the Stock Exchange's main board by the end of February.

The Otago-based company, which is commercialising a biological control of the same name for the grape-destroying fungus botrytis cinerea, is preparing a listing profile.

It raised $5 million in a float this year.

The company was developed by a partnership between HortResearch and the Otago wine industry.

Director Dr Tak Hung said it had made exceptional progress in the past few months, culminating in the provisional registration of Botry-Zen as a unique biological control for the prevention of botrytis diseases in plants.

A laboratory and production factory had been completed and the company was making commercial quantities of the product for leading wine companies.

Trials on other crops such as berries, kiwifruit and lettuces for this growing season had begun.

He said a spin-off company called Botry-Zen Americas was being formed to handle sales of the product in North and South America.

The company said it was in talks with a leading viticulture industry participant to take an equity stake in the US subsidiary, which it hopes will become the licensed master distributor for both continents.

A European company was also being formed and a British investment banker had been retained to list the European subsidiary on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market for young and growing companies.

One of Botry-Zen's biggest shareholders is South Island entrepreneur Howard Paterson.

Other companies associated with Mr Paterson are A2 Corporation, which uses technology to identify milk-lacking proteins thought to be associated with diabetes and heart disease, and Stock Exchange-listed Blis Technologies, which is based on a treatment for streptococcal throat.

A2, which trades on the Stock Exchange's secondary board, said this week that it had received strong international interest resulting from the IDF World Dairy Summit held in Auckland.

The company remains on track to market A2 milk locally by next March.