In July last year the world was given something to think about when scientists from the State University of New York announced that they had taken the publicly available DNA sequence for the dreaded polio virus and, and, with just regular lab supplies, had used the sequence to build the virus from scratch.
They published the work in the journal Science to show that smart terrorists could do the same (click here for the whole chilling story). One reason why that news should be interesting for Australian biotechnology investors is a patent application from the newly listed Select Vaccines (SLT, $0.68, unchanged) which crossed our desk this week Two researchers at Melbourne's Burnet Institute, David Anderson and Elena Gazina, have filed for patent protection over some Anti-Viral Compounds (WO 03/063869, formerly PCT/AU03/0093, priority date 31 January 2002).
The anti-viral compounds which are covered in the patent are able to work against the action of viruses by their capacity to block a cell's ion channels, that is 'gates' in the membrane of the cell that open in response to an electrically charged element such as calcium (we looked at ion channels in our 1 August coverage of Axon Instruments, a company which makes tools for the investigation of ion channels - see below for more) . When an ion channel into a cell is blocked, a virus can't exploit that channel to enter the cell and cause its reproductive havoc within it. Anderson and Gazina have in mind for the ion channel blockers the prevention of infection by picorna viruses, so called because by viral standards they're quite tiny (pico is Greek for 'very small ).
The picorna virus family includes among its number the abovementioned poliovirus, as well as the not-so-feared rhinovirus which causes the common cold (rhino is Greek for 'nose'). The ion channels blockers Anti-Viral Compounds suggests can do this are mainly off-patent drugs which were developed with purposes totally different from fighting off picorna viruses. They are 1) Verapamil, an old drug (approved 1982) for the treatment of high blood pressure which works because it's a calcium channel blocker, the movement of calcium in and out of cells in blood vessels and the heart having a demonstrable effect on blood pressure; 2) Econazole, an anti-fungal agent that had been around since 1982 as the Johnson & Johnson product Spectazole; 3) Amiloride, a sodium channel blocker that has been on the market since Merck introduced it as Midanor way back in in 1967. Amiloride acts as a diuretic and is therefore often prescribed to lower blood pressure (people with high blood pressure tend to keep too much water in) and 4) a substance called Benzamil, not a pharmaceutical but a known sodium channel blocker nonetheless.
Anti-Viral Compounds forms the basis of the intellectual property of Picoral, one of two ventures in which Select Vaccines is involved. Select, readers of this email will recall, is the most recently listed member of the Peregrine Corporate stable, it having been formed to become the unofficial commercialisation arm of the Burnet Institute with David Anderson as Chief Scientific Officer. Picoral is working on potential antiviral drugs for the common cold as well as doing high throughput screening looking for more compounds like those outlined in the Anti-Viral Compounds patent.
While the suggestion of a cure for the common cold may raise hackles and may prove uneconomic due to the other rationally designed approaches potentially available, a drug-based method to defeat picorna viruses could lead to a big payoff. That's because it opens up a whole new approach to viral disease management that doesn't depend on vaccines, an area pharmaceutical companies have difficulty staying in due to the low returns available.
One could also envisage a day when government agencies responsible for keeping picorna viruses like polio or Hepatitis A out of the population are looking to have an arsenal of back up options in the event of vaccine unavailability. Picoral is therefore worth watching to see what Anderson's team come up with. Select Vaccines has had a good run, the other project in the company, Hepgenics, which is working mainly on commercialising cheap and fast working hepatitis diagnostics in Asia.
Nonetheless the interesting nature of the science suggests that Select might be worth paying some attention to if they can get some traction from out of the Burnet scientists initial work.
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