US firm looks to Auckland for cancer research

By Yoke Har Lee

Nasdaq-listed company Vion Pharmaceuticals is tapping into the University of Auckland's cancer research talent to develop new treatments.

Depending on how successful the research pans out over the next six months, the collaboration could lead to pre-clinical trials, and further down the track, commercialisation of the proprietary knowledge.

Under the terms of the agreement signed, Vion Pharmaceuticals would work with EPTTCO Ltd, a company in which Auckland UniServices has a 26 per cent stake, combining EPTTCO's research with its own.

UniServices is the arm of the University of Auckland set up to commercialise its research work.

The other partners in EPTTCO, set up only this year, are British organisations Cancer Research Campaign Technology, Institute of Cancer Research and Centre for Applied Microbiology.

Vion has proprietary knowledge on bacterial vectors (or carriers) aimed at reaching cancer cells.

EPTTCO has know-how on two agents - prodrugs and enzymes - able to kill cancerous cells. A prodrug is a compound which breaks up into very toxic materials able to kill cancer cells.

The Vion-EPTTCO venture typifies the globalisation of research which UniServices is keen to participate.
Chief executive of UniServices Dr John Kernohan said: "You form alliances with pharmaceutical companies, that's how it is working. We think we are in a very strong position now to get the sort of deal that Jim Watson has done with Genesis (the latest being forest research)."

He said EPTTCO was based in Britain so it could more effectively tap into the global network to tie up deals with large pharmaceutical outfits.

But research for the Vion-EPTTCO cooperation would be done largely in Auckland, Dr Kernohan said.

EPTTCO's chief executive, Trevor Twose, said together Vion and EPTTCO have the technologies to create a novel and targeted approach to the treatment of cancer.

Vion's trademark vectors, called TAPET, use genetically modified salmonella bacteria to access the targeted tumours.

In pre-clinical trials, TAPET has shown effectiveness over an entire range of solid tumours.

The company is preparing to initiate human clinical safety testing of its TAPET vectors alone, during 1999, and to later develop TAPET as a vector for delivery a wide range of anti-cancer agents.