Psiron CEO, CFO resign

Julie Nutting has stepped down as both CEO and director of Sydney-based Psiron (ASX:PSX), positions she has held since December 2003.

The company's CFO, Greg Williams, also resigned yesterday, and executive chairman Stephen Jones will take on the day-to-day management of the company. Jones had not responded to a request for interview by press time.

Nutting said she had left Psiron on good terms, but said that she and Psiron's board -- which includes Bryan Dulhunty, Wolf Hanisch, Darren Shafren and Dennis Feeney, as well as Jones -- had disagreed about the best way in which to develop the company's technology.

"You sometimes see disagreements in companies and it doesn't do anybody any good, particularly the shareholders," she said. "You've got to make sure that the technology has got an agreed plan and that it's pushed forward. I'm parting the company on good terms. If they want me to help out on something in the future, if I'm able to, I'll try to do that."

Asked whether she had been asked to leave or had resigned, Nutting said: "In the real world, those things are pretty marginal".

Milestones

In April 2005, Jones, who was already Psiron's chairman, became the company's executive chairman and announced at that time that he would assume day-to-day management of the company. Nutting continued as CEO with direct responsibility to achieve certain milestones by December 31, 2005, relating to the company's Cavatak and Echo 1 clinical trial programs.

Cavatak is a melanoma therapy based on Psiron's patented Cocksackie A21 virus (CVA 21) strain which, when injected into solid tumours, lyses cancerous cells, or induces their death by apoptosis. Echo 1 is another therapeutic virus that Psiron is developing for treatment of prostate and ovarian cancer.

Nutting was responsible for a company-sponsored phase I clinical trial of CVA 21 in stage 4 melanoma patients by the end of April 2005, and lodging ethics documents to enable a second phase I clinical trial for CVA 21 and one for Echo 1 virus in patients with prostate or ovarian cancer. She was also responsible for production of the two therapeutic viruses in GMP-like conditions, so that they could be administered to humans, and to begin GMP grade protocols to allow phase II trials in early 2006.

Jones told the company's AGM last year that Psiron had gained ethics approval to use prototype CVA 21 in stage 4 melanoma patients, had developed a new cell line to manufacture Cavatak under GMP conditions, contracted Bresagen (ASX:BGN) to manufacture Cavatak to enable phase II human trials, and developed documents for ethics approval for clinical trials in Australia.

Nutting said most of the milestones had been achieved, although the board had decided not to continue with the Echo 1 program.

Lifeline

Jones is chairman of the Australian Technology Fund (ATF), which has agreed to provide Psiron with funding under its existing convertible note facility. In May 2005, Psiron was listed by biotech industry newsletter Bioshares as a company that may not have enough capital to see it through to the next funding cycle. Psiron made a loss of nearly AUD$5.9 million in 2004/05 and at the end of the second quarter of 2005/06 had just $966,000 in the bank.

"The company has been looking to get a bit of funding in to help through this next 12 months -- they're quite critical, as you move into the clinical trial stage," said Nutting, who holds shares in Psiron. "I've really got my fingers crossed that this will be the year for Psiron with their clinical results."

Nutting said she planned to spend time with her family while also seeking a new position. "I love working with start-ups -- they're really hard, and you get combinations of technical risk, and a lot to do with people's personalities. It's very dynamic," she said.

Jones is also chairman of Analytica (ASX:ALT), BresaGen (ASX:BGN) and unlisted biotechs CBio and InJet Digital Aerosols. The ATF has investments in all of these companies -- the fund is one of the largest shareholders in Psiron and Analytica, the largest shareholder of CBio, and has a 35 per cent holding in InJet.

In more staff changes, Dr Stephen Lambros was appointed yesterday as Psiron's chief medical officer, to assist in the company's Cavatak clinical trial program. Lambros was appointed last October as Psiron's VP of business development in North America.

Psiron shares were trading as high as $0.23 in July last year, but were trading at $0.165 at the time of writing, down $0.005 from when trading opened today.