Sometimes it helps to think out loud. What did Stella Xu,...

Sometimes it helps to think out loud. What did Stella Xu, Executive Director for Roche Partnering, mean when she implied that the Roche partnership with Phylogica "could lead to the next step-change in medicine"? The comment was made at the 2010 Ausbiotech Congress in Melbourne.

Of course we can't categorically say except to refer to common usage such as Quantum Leap, New Paradigm, Prodigious Leap Forward or a Step up to a New Level of Understanding.

Certainly it didn't appear to be a throw away line. Dr Doug Wilson, Chairman for Phylogica, appeared to validate the importance of the statement by re-quoting Stella Xu in his December Update.

We can at least guess that Stella was referring to the discovery of cell pentrating peptides. Roche has entered into a collaboration to discover intracellular drug carriers. Astrazeneca is utilising its collaboration to discover novel antibiotics against hospital acquired infection while Pfizer has seen a completely different application for the phylomer libraries, owned and protected under patent by Phylogica. Pfizer has entered into a collaboration to discover novel peptide vaccines in a major disease area. Meanwhile, the collaboration with the MRC Hutchinson Unit, the leading UK oncology group at Cambridge University, is pioneering work in "new and unique approaches to cancer treatment" which has attracted "significant interest from Big Pharma".

Nick Woolf has advised that three additional deals will be likely signed in 2011 with a focus upon partnering with Top 10 Pharma. Possibly the proposed new collaborations will target all together different applications yet again. The competitive tension for access to the phylomer libraries is growing. The new year may well herald a step change in investor sentiment.