Eiffel unfazed by BattellePharma termination

The decision by the world's largest private biotech, BattellePharma, to terminate its research agreement with Melbourne-based drug re-engineering company Eiffel Technologies will have little effect on the company's financial position, an Eiffel spokesman said today.

Rod Tomlinson, an Eiffel director, said BattellePharma's decision would disappoint the company's shareholders, but said the announcement had a strong upside.

BattellePharma has delivered highly favourable report after testing a peptide drug re-engineered with Eiffel's proprietary supercritical fluid technology.

The technique involves using supercritical fluids as solvents. The super-dense gases, which exhibit fluid-like properties, can dissolve a wide range of compounds that are poorly soluble in water and conventional hydrocarbon solvents like alcohol.

When decompressed, the supercritical solvent evaporates almost instantly, precipitating a mist of drug particles in the nanometre size range -- as fine as tobacco smoke.

Earlier this year, Eiffel announced that tests by Deakin University researchers had shown that nanomised insulin is not only absorbed more rapidly into the bloodstream, it produces a more prolonged therapeutic effect than conventional insulin.

BattellePharma used its Mystic inhaler technology to test an unspecified peptide molecule prepared by Eiffel, and reported that the drug maintained full biological activity in aerosol form.

BattellePharma's director of formulation research and development, Dr Ada Cowan, said the study "demonstrated the feasibility of preparing stable liquid formulations of biopharmaceuticals with high drug loadings, offering a breadth of additional options to traditional power preparations for pulmonary delivery dosage forms."

Tomlinson said the test had provided a demonstration of the applicability of Eiffel's SCF technology to peptide drugs, which may be damaged by the conventional grinding or crushing methods used to micronise solid drug formulations.

He said Eiffel had projected "very little income" from Battelle -- "We regarded them more as a consultant, than a partner or long-term client.

"They discontinued the agreement because of their own financial plans, but the most important thing is that Eiffel owns the intellectual property, and BatellePharma gave us the best possible report on it that we could have imagined."

Tomlinson said Eiffel was proceeding with capital raising to fund construction of a facility to produce nanomised drugs in kilogram quantities for testing by other large pharmaceutical manufacturers.

He said Eiffel had been building links with the big pharmas, who are interested in using Eiffel's SCF technology to re-engineer lucrative drugs that are due to come out of patent over the next few years.

By producing new nanomised formulations, that can be delivered through the lungs, nasal membranes or skin, bypassing the liver, companies would be able to win extensions on patent protection for such compounds.