Cryptome AGM sheds little light on CEO departure

Cryptome (ASX:CRP) chairman Graham Kelly offered shareholders few clues about reasons behind the resignation of CEO Jeffrey Travis at today's annual general meeting, but the company has announced the appointment of Prof Mathew Vardas as acting CEO.

US expatriate Travis -- who was appointed in January shortly after the company floated on the ASX -- resigned last month in a move that Kelly described as "sudden" and for genuine personal reasons.

"In 2005 we are a very different company to what we were in late 2003 when we appointed Jeff," he said.

Kelly also said that Cryptome would be looking for "further capital support to take the company forward," although he would not say how much money the company planned to raise.

Vardas is currently chairman of Cryptome's scientific advisory board. His appointment to the acting CEO role is subject to his being granted leave from the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science.

The company also gave the AGM an overview of its scientific achievements. Kelly noted that Cryptome's cardiovascular drug candidate CROO1 is likely to be subjected to further lead optimisation before being moved into pre-clinical development.

The 16 peptide libraries developed by Cryptome's cardiovascular program have been put through a low-throughput screening process for application against cancer. Kelly said that this process had generated three hits, which are now being explored further to identify the active peptide fragments. The technology will also be applied to neuroinflammatory diseases.

Kelly said Cryptome was planning to supplement its own peptide libraries with proteins licensed in from external sources.