Alchemia patents tipped to aid fundraising

Carbohydrate-based drug design and manufacture company Alchemia has secured two key patents on its technology platform that should aid its efforts to tie off a multimillion dollar fundraising exercise.

The patents, granted in the US and Europe, protect Alchemia's underlying technology platform, Versatile Assembly on Sugar Templates (VAST). The technology provides researchers with a tool for quickly building designer carbohydrate molecules as drug candidates.

Alchemia has a further 30 patents in train across 18 patent families which focus on specific classes of molecules and their activity.

But the two which have been granted are more general in that they relate to the underlying platform and are deemed vital by the company because they impose a barrier to entry for competitors working across all classes of carbohydrate molecules.

Carbohydrates have fertile therapeutic potential as the basis for new drugs aimed at conditions from cancer to bacterial infection and cardiovascular disease. But they are too complex and expensive to tap into without help from platforms such as Alchemia's VAST.

The promise of the technology and the carbohydrate expertise embodied in Alchemia's s 50-strong staff have helped the Brisbane company raise $23 million since its 1995 inception.

It has been seeking an additional $10 million to $15 million and is in the final stages of closing off fund-raising in the next few months, according to Alchemia CEO Dr Tracie Ramsdale.

Alchemia has an alliance with The Dow Chemical Company to manufacture commercial quantities of carbohydrate-based drugs and has agreements with other drug and biotech companies covering the use of VAST.