BresaGen as a world-leader in gene biotech from Adelaide fades in 2006 with takeover by global drug company
Adelaide's BresGen company had its era of leading the world in aspects of gene technology from the 1980s fade away in 2006 when it accepted a takeover offer for BresaGen by Hospira Holdings (S.A.) Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of an American pharmaceutical and medical device company ,taken over in turn by global drug giant Pfizer Inc,
Adelaide’s BresaGen, a ground-breaking company in world biotechnology, went into voluntary administration on January 20, 2004.
The previous day, three board directors – chairman Peter Hart, Chris Juttner and John Harkness – resigned. Hart didn’t use his casting vote with the board deadlocked at 3-3 on the company’s future. The three American directors wanted to the company to keep going. Factors leading to voluntary administration included negotiations ending with CM Capital to restructure the company. No firm investor had been found in the United States of America (USA) for Generipharm, set up there by BresaGen with the idea of manufacturing generic pharmaceuticals.
Hart and chief executive John Smeaton said the American directors were prepared to spend BresaGen’s $2 million still in the bank, instead of it going to entitlements for employees and despite Australian directors being personally liable if trading insolvent. Smeaton and Allan Robins were among executives who believed the BresGen should be continued, with valuable assets such as its embryonic stem cell lines.
On April 1, 2004, administrators Ferrier Hodgson announced agreement to restructure and relist the BresaGen on the stock exchange, with CBio Ltd, an unlisted public biotech company based in Queensland, to buy 51%.
BresaGen’s former life continued to pay off. In August 2004, BresaGen’s deal with CyThera meant its later merger gave BresaGen Inc a 9.75% share of Novocell, a Californian biopharmaceutical company focused on commercialising encapsulated cell technology to treat of diabetes and other diseases.
As part of what the South Australian government's Bio InnovationSA called a strong rebound by BresaGen, its protEcol services division announced discussions with 12 Australian and overseas companies regarding process development and manufacture of their biologics, leading to contracts worth $547,000. After a big capital injection from CBio Ltd, new managing director Dr Worlf Hanisch said BresaGen’s relisting was an “excellent result”.
BresaGen’s focus was firmly on proteins and peptides, due to the increasing worldwide market in biopharmaceuticals. In 2003, 12 peptides were registered globally – with just that small group representing a $9.2 billion market. Through 2004-05, BresaGen’s cGMP29 production plant at the Adelaide inner western suburb of Thebarton met short-term contracts for clinical trial material and manufacture and sold a subset of proteins/peptides to buyers. A contract was signed with USA’s Pepgen Corporation for BresaGen to progress Pepgen’s autoimmune, inflammatory and viral therapies.
BresaGen was awarded a contract for Opsona Therapeutics, based in Dublin, Ireland, to progress a pre-clinical immunomodulator, OPN-201. Another contract was signed with a second unnamed Middle East pharmaceutical company. Plans for a 500 litre fermentation tank were part of increasing potential output of the Thebarton plant five fold.
BresaGen’s ProtEcol Services earned $1,887,000 for 2004/2005, down from $2,075,000 the previous year. Adelaide-based venture capital company, Paragon Equity, took a 10% holding in PresaGen in exchange for investing $852,350, as contracts kept coming, including those with Caldeon Pty Ltd and Tissue Therapies Ltd, worth $680,000, in early 2006. Other Australian biotech companies – including CBio, Hunter Immunology, QRx, Imugene, PDCO, and Sydney University – were listed on BresaGen’s website as customers of products being developed.
In February 2006, BresaGen announced a distribution agreement with an Indian company BV BioCorp for two biopharmaceutical products. But a takeover offer for BresaGen was accepted in August 2006 from Hospira Holdings (S.A.) Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of an American pharmaceutical and medical device company, that in turn was taken over by global drug giant Pfizer Inc.