Another re-assurance to PYC punters what they have invested in. Paul Watt Phylogica Ltd
Paul Watt turned his discovery of a unique proprietary class of targeted peptide therapeutics, called Phylomer? peptides, into a drug discovery business that offers the pharmaceutical industry a unique outsourcing service.
Phylogica Ltd discovers drugs for the pharmaceutical industry in exchange for technology access licences, contract research, milestone payments and royalties. Its pharmaceutical partners fund drug development at their own risk, thereby reducing the risk for Phylogica?s investors.
Many modern drugs combat diseases by having the right shaped molecules to bind with disease proteins. To accelerate drug discovery, Paul and his team set out to find the world?s most diverse set of protein-derived shapes, or peptides, to offer more alternatives from which to choose drug candidates.
He sourced these peptides from an evolutionary diverse range of bacterial genomes, collected from harsh environments such as hot springs and deep‐sea vents, in which their genomes have been subject to intense natural selection. From these bacterial genomes, Phylogica has developed libraries containing billions of distinct Phylomer? peptides, representing the most structurally diverse peptide libraries available.
Paul and his world-class team of scientists have built a formidable patent estate to control access to the Phylomer? library resource, which excludes competition around this novel drug class, and they have also built a complementary suite of patented technologies to screen these proprietary libraries efficiently.
In 2005, Phylogica listed on ASX, raising $5 million in an IPO that was 2.5 times oversubscribed, and later it received a $2.3 million AusIndustry Commercial Ready Grant.
Following a peer-reviewed paper by prestigious journal Nature Biotechnology, Paul signed his first pharmaceutical deal with Johnson and Johnson Research, a forerunner to eventually moving Phylogica?s corporate emphasis from internal drug development to external contract drug discovery alliances with big pharmaceuticals.
By 2007, Paul achieved a US Patent for his Phylomer? libraries, establishing Phylogica?s dominant IP position over an entire drug class which now comprises 16 patent families. Two years later, he signed Australia?s first drug discovery deal with Europe?s largest pharmaceutical company, Roche. This was quickly followed by a discovery alliance around antimicrobials with AstraZeneca (Medimmune) in August 2010 and another with Pfizer for Therapeutic Vaccines in December 2010.
The three recent deals, with Roche, Medimmune and Pfizer, have already generated $2.5 million in initial payments within 12 months. As their drug candidates reach certain validation milestones, Phylogica could receive further milestone payments totalling $245 million, as well as sales royalties if the drugs reach market. Phylogica expects the business to be cash-flow sustainable by the first half of 2012.
PYC Price at posting:
6.6¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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