BioProspect teams with US company in screening deal

Queensland-based BioProspect has formed a collaboration with US company Apath to screen BioProspect's natural plant extract library for potential antiviral therapeutics for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and other pathogenic viruses.

Details of the three-year collaboration are confidential, but BioProspect CEO Selwyn Snell said that the deal could provide significant value in the form of revenue if successful.

"Basically what we are doing is setting up an arrangement where they will screen our extracts in their assays," Snell explained.

BioProspect will be paid license fees for supplying their extracts to Apath, he said, where they will be screened against Apath's proprietary antiviral screening platforms. BioProspect will then provide natural products chemistry expertise to identify biologically active compounds from any hits.

BioProspect will also receive development milestone payments and royalties from any commercialised products derived from their extracts, Snell said.

While the collaboration is slated to last for three years in the first instance, Snell noted that it could extend for a number of years. The companies have already begun to work together, he said.

Snell noted that the deal demonstrated that BioProspect was starting to gain international recognition for its natural plant extracts library.

Apath has developed a unique screening platform for HCV and other RNA viruses including Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). "Their technology in the area of HCV and associated viruses is unique in the world of medicine," Snell said.

Around 170 million people worldwide are affected by HCV infection and the disease is forecast to cause more deaths in the US than HIV/AIDS by 2011.

The market for HCV therapeutics is estimated to be $US1.7 billion, and predicted to grow to $US5 billion by the end of the decade. Current therapeutics against HCV have limited effectiveness.