TetraQ forms strategic alliance with US company

University of Queensland based contract research organisation TetraQ has formed a strategic alliance with Californian-based regulatory and product development consulting firm Ground Zero Pharmaceuticals (GZP).

GZP will assist TetraQ by providing its clients with advice on the US drug development process and on how to prepare regulatory submissions to the FDA.

"GZP is run by experienced consultants, a lot of them are ex-FDA people. They just made a really perfect fit for the kind of advice we're looking to provide to our clients," said TetraQ business development manager Dr Stuart Behncken.

"It's a two way referral agreement, where we're jointly working with each others' clients," he said.

While GZP already has some Australian clients, Behncken said the alliance will give the US company increased exposure in the Australian market place.

"They're seeing the growing Australian biotech industry as a good place for them to be able to offer their help and advice," he said.

Behncken said that it is not easy for TetraQ will to bring in clients from North America, but "with GZP on the ground in California, if they find that their clients in the US are needing services that we've got to offer, then it will work both ways."

TetraQ was established in May by four UQ researchers and operates through UQ's main commercialisation arm, UniQuest.

Designed to provide a 'one-stop-shop' for pre-clinical drug development in Australia, TetraQ has conducted 36 preclinical studies for 15 Australian clients in its first five months of operation, including Metabolic Pharmaceuticals, Progen, Alchemica and Eqitx's subsidiary Zingotx.

"The job for the last six months was to get established, get known and start getting some of those clients through," said Behncken. "I think we've been pretty successful in doing that."

Over the next six months, TetraQ's laboratory facilities will be refurbished using an AUD$8.1 million grant from the Queensland government and TetraQ will seek Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) accreditation in 2006.

"Every submission that goes to the FDA needs to be done in a GLP accredited lab, and it's quite an onerous task to be able to get that accreditation," said Behncken. "You've got to go through a fairly substantial process and auditing, and we're committed to doing that."

TetraQ has two business avenues, said Behncken. The first is providing fast feedback candidate selection services, where TetraQ helps "clients work out which drugs they want to take forward for their own business strategy", he said. The second arm is providing services and reports to regulators, particularly the FDA. "A lot of that requires a GLP for toxicology," said Behncken.

Most Australian companies contract the bulk of their pre-clinical drug development work overseas because Australia's pre-clinical drug development capability is limited or fragmented, said Behncken.

"It's TetraQ's mission to retain as much of this work in Australia as possible, as well as to give the extra advice and interpretation that is often lacking with the larger providers," he said.