BIO profile: Andy Gearing, BioComm

Dr Andy Gearing believes wholeheartedly that big pharma and big biotech overseas should take a closer look at what the Australian biotechnology and life sciences sector has to offer.

"We don't see many of the world's business development people coming down to look around," says Gearing, the CEO of BioComm. "We have helped arrange that for some, and when they do they are impressed. But we need more people to come."

BioComm has found a niche in the Australian biotech industry which Gearing believes is worth filling. The company, which was founded in 2001 with the support of the Victorian state government's technology commercialisation program (TCP), has built itself into one of Australia's leading licensing groups, engaged in helping universities, research institutes and biotechnology companies make the deals -- in-licensing, out-licensing, tech transfer.

"I saw a lot of opportunities here," says Gearing, previously director of British Biotech's new opportunities evaluation team. "The market failure was in the deal flow, and the industry is driven by deals. Companies use in- and out-licensing to balance their portfolios -- very few companies go from start to finish completely on their own. It was a market niche we could fit, and there was a real need for it."

In essence, BioComm acts as an extra capability for technology transfer groups and business development teams, offering direct access to the right people in the industry.

"There are relatively small groups that control licensing and deal flow in the industry -- usually one or a few business development people within a company," Gearing says. "It means establishing relationships with a relatively discrete narrow strata of individuals."

To do that means that Gearing and his team are on the road a lot -- attending most, if not all, of the major bio-partnering meetings held around the world.

"Our business also works the other way round -- most business development groups tell you what they are looking for," he says. "We want to be in the position where our relationships develop to a point where a deal becomes inevitable."

BioComm's goal is to become the best stand-alone bio-licensing group in Australia, he says -- and after three years Gearing believes it is well on its way. With a 50:50 mix of academic and commercial clients, the company has completed six contracts and has 16 currently in progress, of which more than half have reached the stage of confidential discussions. And from its Victorian origins, the company is now reaching further afield, even internationally. It's not a bad track record, Gearing says, especially for a small company.

Among BioComm's success stories are a painkiller developed at Monash University and now in Phase I clinical trials at Vernalis, and a licensing deal between the Bernard O'Brien Institute and Onyvax.

"The Monash-Vernalis deal was an extremely good deal for an academic compound into a European biotechnology company, and it was a deal that helped in the growth of Ribotargets by M&A into Vernalis," Gearing says.

"We're now spreading out from our original academic base to commercial clients -- the next step will be to get more international clients so that we are doing deals between companies anywhere in the world. Our goal is to compete as an internationally relevant licensing group."

A challenge for BioComm is the fact that Australia's biotechnology industry is still small, and not particularly well known in the face of the giant US industry. But it's getting better every year, says Gearing, as more Australian companies are successful in obtaining deals and developing drugs.

"The more success we get the better. We're relatively small and we started relatively late so we have to catch up -- it's nothing that 3-5 years can't cure," he says. "At the moment we're doing a lot of out-licensing from Australia to international partners, but in a few years the boot will move to the other foot, and the balance will shift."

BioComm also has a small seed capital pool of AUD$11.5 million with investors including BioTech Capital, GBS Venture Partners, Macquarie Bank and Queensland Investment Corporation, to establish new start-ups. The first investment from the pool was made last year into University of Melbourne spin-off Cryptopharma from a consortium including BioComm, GBS and UniSeed.

"We expect 10-15 companies to be funded over the next 3-5 years," says Gearing. "There are several possibilities at the moment." Gearing believes the Australian biotechnology industry is moving into a new phase, with a lot of licensing activity and bigger deals being made.

"If you bring big or small biotech companies down here they will find opportunities, you can guarantee it. It's still an early-stage industry -- there are lots of choices," Gearing says. "Get here before the rush starts."

Pedigree

Gearing has a good pedigree for his role as BioComm CEO. A former business development director for UK biotech flagship British Biotech (now Vernalis), he joined BioComm as CEO in 2001. Over a 12-year span at British Biotech, Gearing had worked initially in research, heading up the company's TNF program in 1989, moving into business development roles in the late 1990s. Among the deals he worked on was between British Biotech and Australian biotech pioneer BresaGen.

Before that, Gearing worked as a scientist for six years in the Immunology division of the UK's National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) where he was involved in developing biological standards and reference reagents for newly emerging cytokine drugs. In that period, he took a sabbatical at Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute to work with Greg Johnson in Don Metcalf's cancer and haematology group.

So when the opportunity to come back to Australia to set up BioComm was presented to Gearing, he jumped at the chance.

"I'd lived here before, and knew the science base was grand, and that the industry base had been developed," Gearing says. "This was a great opportunity to participate in an exciting time in the development of the Australian biotech industry."