Local biotechs take on superbugs
A spin-off biotechnology company from WA's Telethon Kids Institute believes it can "crack" cells harbouring bacterial infections.
Phylogica, formed in 2001, helps fund the institute's drug technology group and has signed a deal worth up to $170 million to develop antibiotics to fight superbugs using its library of natural protein compounds known as Phylomer peptides to infiltrate cells. Under an agreement with Genentech, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant Roche, Phylogica will get more than $600,000 upfront and be eligible for up to $174 million if products are eventually commercialised.
Scientist and Phylogica chief executive Richard Hopkins said the company took a new tack to be competitive in the world market using biologics, or protein-based drugs derived from living cells cultured in a laboratory.
It changed the focus of its big-ticket technology to target inside cells where drugs could be more effective, rather than the outside.
"The problem is that biology has evolved in a very powerful way to keep drugs out of cells and cell membranes are a very powerful filter," Dr Hopkins said.
"The frustration for the pharmaceutical industry is that conventional therapies, or small molecule drugs, can only reach a tiny fraction of those intracellular targets.
"But if they can get the class of drugs we're working with, biologics, into these cells suddenly it's like the Wild West, the last frontier, and a whole bunch of new therapeutic drugs could be developed, including antimicrobials."
Dr Hopkins, who did his postdoctoral research in yeast genetics at the institute, said Phylogica's role was to use its peptides to deliver biologic drugs. This could uncover antimicrobials to treat bacterial infections.
"There is a lot of interest in cancer drugs at the moment but there hasn't been a new class of therapeutical antimicrobials in 30 years and the spectrum of resistance is huge, so we think this is a very exciting area to be specialising in," he said.
Last month, a major US review estimated antimicrobial resistance would cause 300 million premature deaths globally by 2050 and cost the world economy trillions of dollars.
'A whole bunch of new therapeutic drugs could be developed.' " Researcher *Richard Hopkins *
