BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - Biotica Technology Ltd. raised US$5 million from foreign investors in its first-round funding, to develop novel versions of existing polyketide drugs and agricultural chemicals by targeted alterations in their biosynthesis.

The round was led by Biotechnology Value Fund, of San Francisco, with co-investor Nordic Biotech, of Copenhagen, Denmark. Simon Turner, CEO of Cambridge-based Biotica, told BioWorld International, "We assumed we would need a UK investor as lead, but we also wanted to have a U.S. investor and a European one, too. As it happened we found a U.S. investor who was prepared to lead.

"We are delighted to raise $5 million in the current climate, and think the timing is very good in the sense that it will keep up us going for 18 to 24 months, by which time the financial markets should have improved."

Marc Schneidman, vice president of Biotechnology Value Fund, said he believed Biotica's technology was among the most advanced and promising in the field of natural products. "It is rare to find an early stage opportunity with such leading-edge technology, high-quality science and top management already in place."

Biotica's technology allows it to engineer novel polyketide structures through targeted alteration of their biosynthesis. This allows it to access spaces within the structure that cannot be accessed using conventional chemical synthesis.

Existing polyketide drugs account for more than $17 billion in annual sales and cover a broad range of therapeutic areas. There also are a number of important agricultural chemicals in the class. Type I polyketides are the most important commercially and include the antibiotic erythromycin, the antifungal amphotericin B, the immunosuppressant rapamycin, and the insecticide spinosyn.

About 7,000 naturally occurring polyketides have been identified, of which 1 percent are clinically or agriculturally useful. The most abundant sources are the Gram-positive bacteria, Actinomycetes.

"We are not saying much about our specific technologies right now because we want to make sure we have the area sewn up, with as rounded an intellectual property portfolio as possible," Turner said.

He said the technology can be used to discover new compounds and to improve existing drugs. "The technology is subversive because it allows you to get around patents. We can do things chemistry can't."

Biotica already completed one collaborative project with Dow AgroSciences, looking for analogues of an existing insecticide. "This was completed at the end of last year, and we are not saying anything about future plans yet," Turner said. The company, which was spun out of Cambridge University, also has a collaboration with Pfizer Inc. in the field of antibiotics, which was set up in 1997 and expanded recently.

In addition, Biotica has two in-house discovery and development programs in the areas of cancer and proliferative diseases. "We are now involved in optimization of leads in each respective area," Turner said.

The technology also can be used to clean up the manufacturing processes for producing existing marketed polyketides. Many of the fermentation processes involved produce co-metabolites that must be removed subsequently. "Targeted changes in biosynthesis could be used to reduce manufacturing costs and we are talking to a number of companies about this," Turner said.