VosTech's Brightsun acquisition turns up the WA biotech heat

VosTech, a technology investment company based in Perth, is planning to enter the biotechnology market by acquiring animal biotechnology company Brightsun and its associated equity interests in CSIRO spin-off Vectogen and Murdoch University start-up Paragen.

Along with the acquisition, VosTech plans to raise additional capital to finance further development of the projects. VosTech will also change its name to Imugene.

Under the terms of the acquisition, VosTech will acquire 50.1 per cent equity interest in Vectogen and 23 per cent interest in Paragen.

Brightsun's principals, Graham Dowland and Dr Warwick Lamb, will become directors of VosTech.

According to VosTech company secretary Gary Steinepreis, VosTech has been a company focused on technology since it was started. The company was recapitalised earlier this year, after going into administration last year, and has been looking around for appropriate technology investments.

"We looked at a number of different industries and products. Brightsun was the one that met our criteria," he said.

Steinepreis said that the company hopes to complete all acquisition and placement activities by the end of August. The deal is subject to shareholder approval.

According to Brightsun managing director Graham Dowland, Brightsun's portfolio of projects is at a range of stages of development.

"We looked for a good balance of early-stage research and closer to commercialisation projects," he said.

Vectogen is a development company spun off from CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory to commercialise vaccine and biotherapeutics utilising an adenoviral vector delivery system.

The company is developing a variety of vaccines for the pig and poultry markets including vaccines for classic swine fever and pig pleuropneumonia, as well as several poultry diseases.

It is also developing productivity enhancers for both pigs and poultry, based on the delivery of cytokine genes.

Dowland said that Vectogen was past the early stage of proof of concept research for a number of its projects, and was moving towards commercialisation.

According to the VosTech prospectus, Vectogen is negotiating several license deals with large biopharmaceutical companies for further development of some of its products.

Dowland said that the company planned to license out some of the products for short-term cash gains, in order to develop other products in-house.

Paragen is a joint venture between Brightsun and Murdoch University, to further development of a recombinant flea vaccine for cats and dogs. The company is also developing a diagnostic test for flea allergies in companion animals, as well as an immunotherapeutic method for desensitisation of allergic animals.

The project, according to Dowland, is still at a proof-of-concept stage.

Paragen will wholly own the IP developed through a research program at Murdoch University.