BioPharmica outlines commercial directions

After raising AUD$2.6 million from its August float, new Perth biomedical company BioPharmica (ASX:BPH) has been busy trawling Australian research waters for new intellectual property.

To date, BioPharmica had netted itself partnerships in a new electroencephalographic (EEG) tool to monitor the effects of drugs and anaesthetics on the brain, and a revolutionary new laser-based biosensor for diagnostic testing, drug development and environmental monitoring.

BioPharmica will have first call on a monoclonal antibody test for a promising new protein marker of breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, being developed by researchers at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR).

The company's first commercial agreement was with a project with Diagnostic Array Systems (DAS) in Melbourne, to develop new, rapid DNA tests for differential diagnoses of dangerous bacterial infections with similar symptoms, such as pneumonia and Legionnaire's disease.

The tests, which are being developed by DAS founders Dr Benjamin Fry and Dr Viraj Nawagamuwa, both experts in bacterial genomics, will allow earlier diagnosis of and appropriate antibiotic treatment of potentially life-threatening bacterial infections.

The UWA-WAIMR cancer project involves a gene called HLS5, identified by Prof Peter Klinken, of WAIMR's laboratory for cancer medicine, which appears to have tumour-suppressor activity.

The gene is down-regulated in some forms of breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, so the HLS5 protein is a promising tool for diagnosing and characterising these cancers. Researchers are now searching international gene databases to determine if the HLS5 gene is involved in other forms of cancer.

The project is developing a HLS5 knockout mouse to determine whether loss of the gene results in increased susceptibility to cancer -- because loss of the gene is embryonically lethal, the mouse will be a conditional knockout.

Late in September, Biopharmica signed a partnership with Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology to commercialise an optical probe developed by Dr Paul Stoddart, of the university's Centre for Imaging and Applied Optics.

Stoddart's SERS (Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy) sensor identifies inorganic and organic molecules, including proteins, from their unique patterns of vibrational emissions when they are energised by low-power laser light directed down an optical fibre.

Stoddart says that the SERS sensor is not limited by the specificity of conventional antibody-based biosensors, which detect only one target antigen. The SERS sensor can identify any molecule whose Raman-emission 'fingerprint' is stored in its database, and is potentially capable of identifying substances down to femtomolar concentrations.

The tip of the optical fibre is treated to adsorb and concentrate the analyte onto its surface, where it can be irradiated with laser light to induce Raman emissions.

"The major obstacle to the technology has been finding an efficient way to built sensitised surfaces on the tip of the optical fibre," Stoddart said.

"We're talking about a surface that is about 100 microns in diameter. It's very difficult to fabricate precise nanoscopic structures on such a tiny platform - many approaches have been proposed over the years, and failed.

"We've developed a simple fabrication technique that doesn't rely on the type of expensive lithographic equipment used in the microelectronics industry. It's simple and cost-effective, and we believe our solution will also resolve the problem of reproducibility, which has been a major barrier to implementing Raman spectroscopy.

"We have a potentially very flexible tool that could be used to probe a wide range of liquid or gaseous analytes.

Stoddart said the SERS sensor could find application in fields as diverse as forensics, water-quality monitoring, in vivo drug detection and monitoring, biosecurity and homeland security.

"We think that arrays of these sensors could also be used for drug discovery, or even in proteomics, as an alternative to mass spectrometry," he said.

BioPharmica will provide funding via a joint venture or company to further develop and commercialise the SERS sensor in partnership with Swinburne University, for which it will own up to a 52 per cent interest in the technology, as well as first and last rights over future funding.

The fourth of BioPharmica's partnerships is with another Swinburne spin-off, Cortical Dynamics, to develop its Brain Anaesthesia Response (BAR) Monitor, a new type of electroencephalograph that monitors and analyses the brain's electrical activity during anaesthesia, or after administration of sedative drugs such as opioids and benzodiazepines.

The BAR Monitor uses a new method of modelling brain waves to calculate a brain activity response (BAR) index, which indicates to a surgeon or anaesthetist how deeply a surgical patient is anaesthetised.

According to the company's press release to the ASX, globally, some 50 million surgical operations a year require general anaesthesia. About 0.1 per cent of patients -- equivalent to 20,000 in Australia last year -- have some recall of the operation, ranging from doctors' comments, through to surgical manipulations and even pain.

The BAR monitor will help anaesthetists maintain patients at the right level of unconsciousness, optimising the use of anaesthetics or drugs to reducing wake-up time and nausea, while minimising the risk of long-term, detrimental side-effects on cognition and memory.

BioPharmica is helping to fund the development of the BAR monitor, and hospital trials to validate its effectiveness.