Australian Biotech Firm Starts With Private Equity Funding

Solvanix, an early stage biotechnology company with what is claimed to be a novel technology for improving stability and reducing the aggregation of fully human antibodies has been launched in Australia with start-up financing from Australia's Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF).The technology was developed by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney.

The company's proprietary "StAbilize" technology works by maximizing colloidal stability and by aggregation of monoclonal antibody products. The process is said to optimize amino acids at specific locations within the antibody complementarity determining regions (CDR) resulting in a fully human antibody with drastically improved stability and a reduced propensity to aggregate that still retains all the properties necessary for therapeutic use.

Solvanix plans to work with the biotech and pharma industries developing therapeutic antibodies incorporating its technology and is offering non-exclusive licenses.

Daniel Christ, founder and CSO of Solvanix and head of the Antibody Therapeutics Laboratory at the Garvan Institute, said a critical problem in the development and manufacture of therapeutic antibodies is their tendency to aggregate under certain conditions. This, he said, "leads to sub-optimal candidates being developed, increases the costs for what are already expensive biopharmaceuticals and limits the utility for certain applications."

MRCF, managed by Brandon Capital Partners, has committed AU$2 million to fund Solvanix and establish a service business that allows the rapid incorporation of its technology into human antibody candidates at all stages of development and commercialization. The company will be based at the Garvan Institute.

Chris Smith, non-executive director of Solvanix and investment manager at Brandon Capital Partners, said "Solvanix is a great example of the pioneering technologies that the MRCF is set up to commercialize."