HatchTech aims to scratch an itch in head lice market

Feeling lousy? Unlisted Melbourne biotech HatchTech believes it may have just the remedy: a safe, potent ovicide that kills the eggs of the common head louse.

Pediculus humanus ssp capitatus is the bane of every household with a child of primary school age. Notoriously contagious, and famously persistent, it has plagued humans and their primate ancestors for millions of years. Science has only recently developed safer alternatives to the radical folk remedy of saturating the scalp with kerosene to suffocate the adult lice, but new pesticides can still leave scores of louse eggs to hatch and repopulate the thatch.

HatchTech was spun out from the University of Melbourne in 2001 to commercialise a newly discovered class of ovicides that kill louse and insect eggs at very low, safe concentrations.

HatchTech director and business development manager Chris Nave said the company's synthetic lead compound for head lice eggs emerged from research by Dr Vern Bowles, deputy director of the university's Centre for Animal Biotechnology, into the molecular events involved in egg hatching.

Bowles identified a key hatching mechanism, then screened a wide variety of compounds for their ability to inhibit it. He zeroed in on a small class of molecules that completely inhibit hatching.

"It's 100 per cent effective, and knocks out three different biochemical pathways, making it very difficult for the lice to evolve resistance," Nave said.

He said the company would probably seek a partner, so it could formulate the ovicide with one of the current chemical treatments for adult lice. The ovicide has no toxicity for adult lice.

The head lice market is potentially lucrative in its own right, but Nave said it is insignificant compared to the US$7-9 billion market for ovicides to control insect pests of agriculture. Several related compounds being tested by HatchTech have proved equally effective in killing insect eggs.

Biotech investor Biocomm Services, GBS Venture Capital, Westscheme, the Queensland Biocapital Fund, and the university's commercialisation company UniSeed last year collectively invested $2.9 in HatchTech, which has R&D projects to develop ovicides for sheep and cattle lice, scabies and cattle ticks.

Nave said the colloquialism 'to feel lousy' actually derives from the fact that head lice secret toxins into the bloodstream as they feed. Heavy infestations in medieval times caused people to feel ill, as well as keeping them awake at night.