Phylogica forms target discovery spin-off with Cambridge

Leading Australian drug discovery company Phylogica Ltd (ASX: PYC, XETRA: PH7) will partner with researchers from the University of Cambridge in a spin-off company to pursue a novel application of its Phylomer® peptides for discovery of disease-associated targets.

The spin-off complements Phylogica’s existing business model by opening up a new market opportunity for the Company. It offers the potential to secure new revenue streams that would otherwise not be accessible to Phylogica without substantial investment in both capital and also in technical expertise. Phylogica has already initiated discussions with prospective partners who are interested in the capabilities of the new Phylogica-Cambridge University venture.

The spin-off company, named Phenomica, will combine Phylogica’s Phylomer® libraries, which comprise billions of naturally derived peptides, with technology from Cambridge to identify vulnerable points in a disease that can be the focus for new drug development.

Phylogica has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Cambridge Enterprise, the
University’s commercialisation group, outlining plans to form Phenomica. The spin-off will be
based in Cambridge, UK, maximising access to state-of-the-art research facilities. Its mission
will be to discover and validate new disease-associated targets and to identify new avenues for therapeutic intervention.

Phylogica CEO Dr Paul Watt said: “The formation of Phenomica follows our extensive collaboration in the area of target discovery and validation with the molecular therapeutics programme directed by Professor Ashok Venkitaraman at the world-renowned Hutchison/Medical Research Council (MRC) Research Centre.”

“The researchers at Cambridge, in collaboration with Phylogica, reported that phenotypic screening of Phylomer libraries against biological pathways associated with the development of cancer, resulted in exceptional hit rates for modulating these pathways and hence a better understanding of the disease process and how to block it. Since then, intense work on the technology by the Cambridge-based team has established that this novel application of our libraries can be used more broadly as a tool to identify and validate disease-relevant biological targets for drug discovery,” Dr Watt continued.

Finding new ways to identify targets is becoming increasingly important as the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of traditional target classes such as kinases is diminishing, making it more difficult to develop new drugs without considerable competition and the need to navigate an increasingly complex patent landscape.