Pharmaxis, Phylogica and LBT win ARC grants

Pharmaxis (ASX:PXS), Phylogica (ASX:PYC) and LBT Innovations (ASX:LBT) have all won separate Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Projects grants for research projects with Australian universities.

Pharmaxis has secured two grants worth $405,000 and $370,000 respectively, which will be put towards research with University of Sydney professors into treating fibrotic damage to organs.

The first project involves investigating the ability of a Pharmaxis compound to treat renal fibrosis. It is being led by renal physician Professor Carol Pollock. The second centres on developing new inhalation technology to deliver Pharmaxis compounds to the fibrotic cells of the lung.

“Fibrotic damage to organs is an area of research which is being actively pursued by many pharmaceutical companies and potentially opens a wide field of indications for successful products,” Pharmaxis CEO Gary Phillips said.

The funding will be provided over the course of three years. Pharmaxis will match the grants with its own expenditure.

The ARC will separately provide Phylogica with just over $402,000 for research with the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB). The project centres on biomarker discovery for peptides within Phylogica’s Phylomer libraries.

Phylogica and the IMB will develop a single biosensor capable of displaying tens of thousands of synthetic Phylomers in parallel for screening in high throughput. A Phylomer array will be built based on these platforms.

The goal is to develop a universal consumable Phylomer chip that can be used to rapidly identify peptide probes specific to any targeted biomolecule.

“By combining Phylogica’s platform with our novel technologies for recombinant peptide production and analysis, we aim to accelerate the development of novel diagnostic applications,” IMB professor Kirill Alexandrov said.

Finally, LBT Innovations and University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Visual Technologies (ACVT) will receive $510,000 in ARC funding to develop new-generation automated lab sample processing technologies.

The project will concentrate on developing visual recognition and analytical software to allow for more accurate automated screening with LBT’s Automated Plate Assessment System (APAS).

LBT has agreed to match the $510,000 grant dollar for dollar. The grant had been contingent on LBT finalising its deal to enter a 50/50 joint venture with Swiss lab instruments company Hettich. The companies reached an agreement late last month.

The joint venture will be responsible for further development and distribution of the APAS. LBT will receive a $2 million upfront payment as part of the deal.

Pharmaxis shares were trading 4.55% lower at $0.021 as of around 1 pm on Friday, LBT Innovations was flat at $0.076, while Phylogica shares were up 3.57% to $0.145.