EvoGenix partners with Canada's Viventia

Business activity at EvoGenix continues apace -- the unlisted Sydney company announced today that itwould team up with Canadian biotech Viventia to identify antibodies as cancer therapeutics.

The partnership will use EvoGenix' directed protein evolution technology with Viventia's tumour-specific 'Armed Antibodies', to improve their binding efficiency to cancer targets.

Viventia, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX:VBI), has one such 'Armed Antibody' - Proxinium, for head and neck cancer -- in Phase I clinical trials in Europe. The platform of technologies is based on isolating human monoclonal antibodies from cancer patients, and developing them to deliver cytotoxic payloads to cancer cells.

EvoGenix' proprietary protein-evolving technology allows researchers to improve protein function by exploring variations on the original molecule's theme, created by artificially induced 'mutations'. The CSIRO-developed technology exploits an error-prone RNA polymerase enzyme that makes random copying errors as it transcribes the gene's original DNA code into messenger RNAs (mRNAs).

EvoGenix' managing director, Dr Merilyn Sleigh, said the project offered technological challenges. She said Viventia had developed a "fast-track" approach to finding targets for antibody therapies. "If our two technologies work together successfully, then the pathway to new cancer therapies may be significantly accelerated," she said.

Sleigh said the two companies had realised there was potential for collaboration for some time. "We kind of knew we'd end up working together," she said.

In a statement, Viventia president and CEO Dr Nick Glover said the project's outcome "will be an exciting one -- building from Viventia's initial discoveries towards potentially even more powerful new therapies that specifically attack cancer cells."

The Viventia announcement is one of a series of developments at EvoGenix in recent months. Before the BIO 2004 conference in San Francisco earlier this month, the company touted strategic alliance with Californian company Absalus.

In April, EvoGenix finalised its second round of funding with a AUD$1.9 million investment by BioFusion Capital and Start-Up Australia Ventures. BioFusion MD Gordon Black joined the EvoGenix board, joining new chairman Chris Harris, CRC for Diagnostics chairman Robin Beaumont, and Start-Up Australia MD George Jessup.