Yes it was good publicity -"NICHOLAS: Proteome Systems, another...

Yes it was good publicity -

"NICHOLAS: Proteome Systems, another of Australia's more promising biotechs didn't have that discipline. And so last April it made investment banking veteran Stephen Porges boss.

STEPHEN PORGES, CEO, PROTEOME : We don't chase science for the sake of science, we just passionately look at what we are doing, where we are going, and everyday you get a step closer to it.

NICHOLAS: Proteome makes tests for tuberculosis, a curable disease that kills two million people every year.

PORGES: There are various tests you can do, the most rapid is about 12 hours, the slowest is about 30 days, and they still do that the same way they did it a hundred years ago, looking through the microscope. Ours is a three minute test.

NICHOLAS: FIND, a world health organisation subsidiary recently took on Proteome as a partner.

PORGES: Last year it was estimated they did about three hundred million tests for TB — that is an idea of the size. Our deal with them was that we will supply to them royalty free, but that does not mean margin free, so we will make a nice return on that.

NICHOLAS: Proteome has also been approached to develop a bird flu test, but the investment banker in Porges hasn't been swayed.

PORGES: We would be doing that but to do it properly it is about a five million dollar program. I'm not about to allocate five million dollars of our capital for a diagnostic product that I hope never gets used. Every CEO you'll ever talk to says their shares are undervalued. And in this sector, moreso than most, you really need to make them understand that they are much better having a small part of a big pie, than trying to own all the pie themselves. "