Eiffel nets $2.2m Start grant

Melbourne drug re-engineering company Eiffel Technologies Ltd (ASX:EIF) has received a pleasant surprise from the Federal Government: a $2.2 million R&D Start grant.

The company is required to match the grant dollar-for-dollar, but chairman Tom Hartigan said today, "It's a bonus for us -- we already had very definite plans on what we were going to spend on research in-house, and we had to budget for the possibility that we would not get the grant."

Eiffel will use the grant to investigate re-engineering of major therapeutic drugs that are soon to come out of patent -- the US Food and Drug Administration can extend patents for several years on drugs that have been re-engineered to enhance their benefits or delivered in a new way.

Eiffel's patented supercritical fluid solvent technology is said to do both. It provides a choice of four different technologies that can dissolve relatively insoluble drugs and produce extremely fine particles that are more readily absorbed, in the body, and more predictable and prolonged in their activity.

"This grant allows us to continue to significantly expand our research and development base, which will greatly accelerate the commercialisation of our technology," said Eiffel CEO and MD Christine Cussen. "In addition, the grant is recognition of the strength and potential of our technology."

Some of the world's biggest-selling drugs, with annual revenues of $50 million, will come out of patent during the next seven years. They include the world's biggest selling drugs, the cholesterol-lowering statins, which have very poor solubility in body fluids.

According to Eiffel, the opportunities for reengineering drugs for oral, transdermal, or inhaled delivery is currently vaued at US$50-60 billion annually.