Perth-based biotech aims for Singapore listing

Perth life science company Rockeby Biomed is expanding in several directions simultaneously.

The two-year-old company, a hybrid of Australian technology and Singaporean finance, is grooming itself to list in the coming year, probably on the Singapore Exchange.

It is also opening a national business office in Melbourne, working toward a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) filing for its hospital-based diagnostic kit for fungal infections and preparing to bring out a rapid test version of the kit aimed at individual practitioners.

Singapore-based managing director Dr Sze-Wee Tan said Rockeby is "basically a good case study on how Singapore can supply capital for ideas that come from outside the country."

Rockeby's diagnostic test kit for systemic candidiasis is based on research work performed in Western Australia by Dr John Warmington. The company received $AU1.5 million in seed funding from Asian backers in 2000.

Rockeby may be well-placed to ride a wave of investor interest in biotechs that appears to be building in Singapore.

Market analysts speculated that pent-up investor demand investors for biotech opportunities could create a window for biotech public floats in the next 12 to 18 months.

Anthony Soh, director of UOB Bioventure Management, expected at least three to five firms to hold initial public offerings in Singapore in the near future, according to Reuters.

"We want to be one of the first to come out," said Rockeby's Tan.

The only biotech firm currently listed on the Singapore exchange is British generic drug developer GeneMedix.

Tan declined to speculate on the valuation of Rockeby's initial public offering but said the funds would be used to further commercialise the company's SysCan3 test kit for candida infections and drive its product pipeline.

Its SysCan3 kits, now marketed in Australia, NZ and the UK, were originally designed to test for invasive candidiasis, the world's fourth-ranked hospital-acquired, blood-borne disorder.

However the technology has also demonstrated its ability to diagnose candida vaginitis in patients prior to vaginal discharges, according to marketing manager Noel Murray.

As a result, the product is attracting attention from gynaecologists and GPs with an interest in women's health, he said.

Other diagnostic methods for candida infections are inefficient and expensive compared with Rockeby's technology which comes as a kit that can be used in a standard serological lab.

Mortality rates among hospital patients with invasive candidiasis range up to nearly 60 per cent and its incidence is said to be on the rise with increased use of broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy, invasive catheterisation, and immunosuppressive or antineoplastic therapy.