Brisbane start-up Protagonist aims for more of a leading role

Drug design start-up Protagonist is attempting to move up the food chain from a tools-oriented company to one with a proprietary interest in the molecules it designs and synthesises.

Assisting the transition will be a second-round fund raising which the company hopes to complete by September or October.

The Brisbane biotechnology company's expertise lies in chemo-informatics, molecular design, combinatorial chemistry and biological screening.

It raised $3 million in its first funding round last October when it was spun off from the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience.

Its technology targets protein-to-protein interactions which have proven difficult to modulate using normal drug discovery approaches.

Unlike most discovery work which concentrates on drugs that fit into active sites on small targets, Protagonist focuses on large macromolecular targets and drug candidates that bind to flat surfaces rather than cavities.

"We have good early data suggesting we will be successful," said company founder and managing director Dr Mark Smythe, who leads a team of about 10 researchers associated with the company.

Before its spin-off as a separate commercial entity, the core of Protagonist's current team supplied contract services to international pharmaceutical companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline.

But the group faced growing pressure from clients who wanted it to transfer some of its intellectual property as well as its services.

Instead of simply hiring out its tools and expertise to develop drugs for clients, Protagonist's business strategy calls for it to develop the drugs itself.

"We are a tools-based company at the moment with several generic technology platforms that we have developed in consultation with industry," said Smythe. "What we want to do is make the shift to a products company that supplies the big pharmas with valuable molecules."

The transition calls for Protagonist to simultaneously develop in-house drug discovery programs while deriving income from applying its technology to targets of interest to pharmaceutical clients, Smythe said.

In a market that rewards companies with the ability to identify and synthesise molecules in tight time frames, he said, Protagonist's platform gave it "a good chance of getting there first."