London calls BioComm, and Japan awaits

Melbourne-based licensing and business development group BioComm has opened an office in London to facilitate licensing and partnering activities in Europe.

Handling business development activities for the London office is Justin Hondris, who is the London-based partner of Titan Bioventures, the investment manager for listed pooled development fund BioTech Capital.

"We've been doing a lot of business in Europe and the UK in particular, but we've been doing it on an intermittent basis, with frequent trips over there," said BioComm CEO Andy Gearing.

"Now we have someone on the ground there as a point of contact. It also avoids us imposing the Australian time zone on European companies."

According to Gearing, Hondris's role will include pitching opportunities from BioComm clients in Australia and elsewhere to UK and European companies, as well as offering BioComm's business services to UK and European companies and academic institutions.

BioComm is also making forays into Japan with the appointment of Tsutomu Mori as business development manager with particular responsibilities for Japan.

"We're breaking open a more specialised market, and we needed someone who knows the profile and position of Japanese pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies," Gearing said.

"We've now got two clients signed up to do partnering just into Japan."

Gearing said the next step in the growth of BioComm would be to extend into the US market. He said the company was exploring possibilities including alignment with appropriate US-based business development organisations.