| New BioDiscovery
strikes deal with Rhone-Poulenc |
November 26, 1998
BioDiscovery announces that it has signed an
agreement to commercialise products from its joint venture with CSIRO Entomology.
"This is the first pay-off from a far-sighted joint venture between CSIRO Entomology
and BioDiscovery Limited to systematically screen Australian insects for agrochemical and
pharmaceutical leads", said Australia's Industry Minister, Nick Minchin.
Australian insect extracts produced by CSIRO are an exciting new source of natural
products for screening by pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies in their ongoing
endeavour to identify "hit" compounds which may lead to novel chemicals and
drugs.
Rhône-Poulenc is a leading life sciences
company, growing through innovations in human, plant and animal health. The company
employs 68,000 people in 160 countries worldwide, and sales in 1997 amounted to some US$15
billion. Rhône-Poulenc Agro, the crop protection division, has
established new methodologies in the search for novel chemistries to support its growth.
A number of valuable crop protection products have been developed as a result of
identifying pesticidal activity in natural organisms, plants, fungi and invertebrates.
Rhône-Poulenc Agro recognises that the extracts isolated from Australian insects in the
BioDiscovery Joint Venture have potential to lead to compounds which are active in crop
protection.
Under the licence agreement Rhône-Poulenc Agro will access extracts from the
CSIRO-BioDiscovery insect library over a three-year period. BioDiscovery will receive an
up-front payment of AUD$500,000 plus two further payments of AUD$500,000 on the first and
second anniversaries of the agreement, a total of AUD$1,500,000 in fixed payments.
Additional payments will be made in the events of a compound showing activity and a
compound undergoing small-scale trials. Rhône-Poulenc Agro estimates that these
additional payments could be in
excess of AUD$1,000,000. Finally, Rhône-Poulenc Agro will pay BioDiscovery royalties
should any compounds lead to the sale of agrochemical products.
Agrochemicals are only one application of the insect library developed in BioDiscovery's
collaboration with CSIRO Division of Entomology. "Natural products form the basis of
many of the top-selling drugs, and BioDiscovery is actively seeking licensing arrangements
with pharmaceutical drug development companies to further enable the exploitation of the
insect library", says BioDiscovery's CEO, Professor Joan Dawes.N1397 |
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