Proteome eyes up double opportunities

Local hero of the proteomics world, Proteome Systems, is looking to expand both into the drug production arena, and into the overseas acquisition fold.

“We are about to make an acquisition in the States to help us move into making our own drug products,” said Proteome CEO Keith Williams. “It’s been a long winter but we have done well. Our sales have increased ten fold over last year, and we are now looking to take the next step in expanding our horizons.”

Proteome is currently in the process of raising between $10 and $20 million which will be specifically used to buy the North American company, which has become a target partly as a result of the shakeout in the US biotech scene. Williams said his company was now ready to take the next step in its charted business plan,and begin the move from its current areas of expansion – pure proteomics and diagnostics – into product manufacture.

“We are not just limiting ourselves to local (acquisitions); we are looking overseas for new opportunities. This is a very interesting time, and to be honest, the world is pretty much our oyster,” he said.

Williams noted biotechs were at last beginning to make their way “out of the frozen wastes” of financing that had previously plagued local startups, and added that a lot more VCs were now showing interest than in previous years.

“The opportunity has come up (to buy this company) and we will have to move quickly to take the first option. But we don’t see too many problems raising the money. We’ve never had them before, and we think we are well enough positioned by now,” he added.

Proteome has been one of the gold-edged performers in the local biotech scene, with revenue doubling last year, and set to do the same again next year. But this revenue had not been gathered by dint of selling off the family jewels, noted Williams, but rather from a sustained application of well-directed research.

“We spent about $15 million in R&D over the last two years and this means we have a solid pipeline of products on stream, not just the wish and prayer aspirations that so many (biotechs) have on offer at the moment,” claimed Williams.

He said this solid sales forecast – tenfold and rising – was one of the key areas in raising funds for the upcoming buyout, adding that investors could now add Proteome Systems to the list of ResMed, Cochlear and the like when it came to predicting solid capital gains.

“We didn’t think that blue sky - and those blue sky products - would be with us for several years, but they have, and the opportunities have come. We are in good shape, and can look at global horizons not local ones,” he said.