Biotech firm in 'family tiff' as it nears deal

By Deborah Hill Cone

Thursday 5th February 2004

A director of promising Aids drug company Virionyx Corporation confirmed yesterday he has filed High Court proceedings against the company.

But he says the litigation is a "family tiff" that will blow over soon and has hinted the biotech company is poised for a major international breakthrough.

Virionyx director Colin Harvey said the liquidation proceedings filed in December at the High Court in Auckland were a trivial matter that was "highly likely to disappear."

"It's not a major happening ... it's a family tiff more than anything," Mr Harvey, who owns animal health company Ancare, said.

Those proceedings are scheduled to be heard with some other separate litigation, the details of which are also unclear, but which involve Virionyx suing major shareholder Patricia Wakins and her company Watpa Enterprises.

The two cases have been adjourned to be heard together on February 19, the High Court files show.

Ms Watkins and three other shareholders Catherine Murphy, Michael Watkins and Nigel Arkell jointly own 3.6 million shares or 15.6% of the biotech company.

Virionyx is one of the biotech companies picked to have a more than fighting chance of actually getting its drug to market it is in the process of finishing the 2a stage of its US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) trials on its anti-Aids medicine HRG214.

There is a high level of international interest in the drug, described by the drug trial investigator, Harvard Medical School Professor Bruce Dezube as an HIV-directed antibody, sourced from goat plasma.

In October Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the company's laboratories in Auckland and Virionyx was singled out by Prime Minister Helen Clark as a promising biotech venture.

Mr Harvey said he was still fully behind Virionyx and hinted the company was on the verge of a major deal in Thailand, which along with China and South Africa is one of the countries with a major Aids problem.

Chairman Peter Sullivan said he could not give details but the company was talking to a major research institution in Thailand and also an Institute for Research into Tropical Diseases.

The deal would be very significant for Virionyx and allow it to push ahead with its Aids research programme.

Mr Sullivan had told NBR last October that the company was investigating trialling HRG214 in a whole new field, using it on other viruses including Sars, dengue fever fever and mosquito-borne viruses.

Yesterday he said the company had infected a goat with Sars in Auckland and would soon be harvesting its antibodies as part of the research. The company did not use live Sars virus as it only needed the protein taken after the virus had been killed.

It was not possible to bring live Sars or anthrax to this country, even for research purposes Mr Sullivan said.

Researcher Frank Gelder, who also sits on the board, did the pioneering work based on purifying goat antibodies.

Goats, unlike humans, have the ability to fight the HIV virus.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet