NZ firm offers Aussies help with their anti-cancer find

New Zealand scientists have offered to produce large quantities of a compound for treating cancer and are negotiating with the Australians who discovered the molecules were present in legumes.

But a chief investigator at Australia's Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research (CILR), Professor Chris Parish, said he was not able to disclose which New Zealand science company has made the offer.

"Unfortunately I can't give you their name now but it should be possible by the end of this month," he said.

Prof Parish - who also leads medical research at the Australian National University - developed the experiment used to identify the compounds as potential therapeutic agents.

The anti-cancer molecules are produced in legumes - such as clover, peas, beans, broom and peanuts - by symbiotic soil bacteria known as rhizobia, which live in root nodules and provide the plant with useable nitrogen it converts into proteins.

CILR said in a statement that several compounds derived from the bacteria showed "strong anti-angiogenic activity" - effectively blocking the formation of a blood supply to tumours.

Without an adequate blood supply, tumours will die. So the compounds offer a pathway for developing new anti-cancer drugs.

The centre has used sophisticated carbohydrate materials from the French Centre for National Scientific Research to produce small amounts of the molecules, but to take its work further, needs to "ferment" bacteria in a laboratory to produce larger quantities of the compounds.

It has "co-investment discussions" under way with a New Zealand company, but no science companies here were willing to confirm the negotiations.

One, Industrial Research, which has developed a carbohydrate synthesis technology designed to deliver the building blocks for new drugs to prevent and treat cancer, said it was not in a position to comment.

There is a world shortage of niche-manufactured carbohydrates produced to "good manufacturing practice" standards - the quality required for pharmaceuticals and clinical trials.

- NZPA