Biosignal awarded $1.5m grant

Sydney antimicrobial developer Biosignal (ASX:BOS) has been awarded a AUD$1.5 million Commonwealth government grant to develop new antibacterial coatings for medical implants and devices.

Biosignal received the largest grant out of 15 awarded, totalling $4.9 million, under the first round of the Commonwealth government's $25 million Industry Cooperative Innovation Program, which aims to foster cooperation on innovation projects. The grant is to be paid over three financial years commencing January 1, 2006.

The project will be conducted through a consortium that includes Biosignal's partner, the Institute for Eye Research, and unlisted medical device company Australian Surgical Design and Manufacture (ASDM), both based in Sydney.

"Primarily the funds are going to be used to identify some antibacterial polymer materials and surface coating techniques that we can then apply to a range of medical devices," said Biosignal's general manager Rohan McDougall. "In the first instance we're going to look at application on the surfaces of catheters, because the infection rates that occur with the use of catheters is so high -- 20 per cent in some cases. We are also working with the company ASDM on applying antibacterial coatings to the surfaces of orthopaedic implants."

The consortium will use expertise gained from the Biosignal's other lead project, the development of antibacterial contact lenses using synthetic analogues of antimicrobial molecules based on furanones secreted by the eastern Australian seaweed Delisea puilchra, to fast-track the medical device antibacterial coatings work.

Biosignal hopes to enter clinical studies on the contact lens project in the first half of 2006. "We're ironing out some production arrangements around the lenses," said McDougall.

Biosignal will conduct most of the work on the medical devices project and any revenue generated as a result of commercialisation of the project will be shared in proportion to contributions to the project, including intellectual property contributions.

"The revenue sharing is flexible at this stage to allow each [collaborator] to invest further. The ASDM will eventually run animal studies and also clinical studies on implantable materials and so if they provide a significant input then they should be recognised in income sharing," said McDougall.

Biosignal hopes to conduct animal studies next year, with clinical studies to begin in the following year, said McDougall. The company aims to have anti-biofilm medical devices on the world market within three years.

"This is a particularly Australian response to a problem which has troubled the healthcare industry world-wide for years," said federal industry minister Ian Macfarlane in a statement. "It's a seemingly simple but highly innovative method of countering infections caused by implants."