Peptech to profit in UK

Peptech will reap further profits from its Remicade anti-TNF antibody in Britain.

The UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended the National Health Service (NHS) make the antibody available as a Crohn's disease treatment.

Remicade will be used to treat Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disorder, in patients who have not responded to corticosteroids or immunomodulators and who are not candidates for surgery.

Stephen Kwik, Peptech's managing director, said the recommendation meant additional sales in the UK.

Recently the UK's NICE recommended the use of Remicade to treat adults with active rheumatoid arthritis who have not responded to methotrexate and other treatments.

Kwik explained it was a very expensive treatment - six injections of the drug over a three-month period cost $10,000.

In the case of Crohn's disease, a patient on the anti-TNF antibody drug "can go into remission for a period of time" he said. By contrast, rheumatoid arthritis sufferers must take the drug continuously.

He said it was good news that both the US and UK governments were now subsidising the use of the drug for Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis, and said the company was waiting for European countries to recommend a similar scheme.

Diversys name change

Diversys, a UK-based company in which Peptech has a 33 per cent holding, has changed its name to Domantis.

Peptech has major research collaborations with Domantis to take the single domain antibodies through clinical trials and to market.

Kwik said that the rename was primarily because there is an existing biotechnology company in the US called Diversa. The US-based company requested that Diversys change its name to avoid any confusion between the companies.

Diversa and Domantis both develop technologies with applications in the pharmaceutical industry as a part of their portfolios, indicating there is a potential overlap.

The new name, Domantis, was selected because it recognises the company's focus on the development of its core Domain Antibody technology, primarily for therapeutic products, according to a company statement to the ASX.

Domantis CEO Robert Connelly said the company was developing its Domain Antibody pipeline both in conjunction with partners such as Peptech, and for generation of its own product leads.

Peptech's portfolio of patents covering the use of antibodies, and/or antibody fragments that bind to TNF, has been licensed to Centocor Inc and Knoll AG (now part of Abbott Laboratories).

Under the respective license agreements, Peptech is to receive ongoing royalties on sales of its products Remicade and D2E7 in countries in which a valid patent exists.