CUREator funds 19 new therapeutics research projects

The government-backed CUREator program fills a gap by funding new medical treatments are nearly, but not quite, ready for commercial investment.

Monash University Rheumatology Research Laboratory members. From left rear: Dr Akshay D’Cruz, Ms Lily Cheang, Ms Tammi Tang, Ms Darcey Kennedy, Dr Taylah Bennett. From left front: Ms Rochelle Sherlock, Dr Sarah Jones, Ms Iolanda Miceli

A national biotechnology incubator backed by the federal government’s Medical Research Future Fund has made its second round of investments in promising new treatments which would otherwise languish for lack of commercial interest.

CUREator, an incubator which manages a $40m investment from the MRFF to develop therapeutics, has announced $12m in grants to 19 research projects which have progressed to a point which is tantalisingly close to commercialisation, but not advanced enough to attract investors.

Sarah Jones, who heads the Rheumatology Research Laboratory at Monash University which is working on a new drug to treat lupus, says that traditional research grant funding isn’t designed to help successful research transition to the commercialisation phase.

Her lab’s research, which has been ten years in the making, previously had a $1m grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council to fund the discovery phase of the program but now needs funding to get to the final stage where it can attract commercial investors.

Sarah Jones, head of the Monash University’s Rheumatology Research Laboratory

Dr Jones’s research group is working on a new treatment for lupus, which promises to be as effective as the steroid drugs which are currently used, but without side effects of steroids which include diabetes, osteoporosis, cataracts, weight gain, mood problems and sleep issues.

She said her team had discovered the biological pathways for the new lupus treatment and $500,000 CUREator grant will fund the final experiments they need to do before launching a discovery program to find a drug which will perform the required tasks.

Dr Jones said their approach also has promise for replacing steroids – and avoiding their nasty side effects – in the treatment of other auto-immune diseases.

Monash University has set up a company GILZRx to house the Rheumatology Research Laboratory’s lupus treatment, and which is ready to welcome investment from other parties when the time comes.

The second round of CUREator grants also benefits Cyteph, a company formed by the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, which will receive $1.5m for a clinical trial of a new immunotherapy approach to treating glioblastoma multiforme, a severe type of brain cancer.

Lead research Rajiv Khanna said his research group uses memory T cells – a type of white blood cells which are optimised to kill particular cancer cells – which are taken from donors and used to attack a patient’s cancer.

The key to the therapy is that Cyteph’s technology pre-trains the donated cells to kill glioblastoma multiforme. “They don’t have to retrain inside the body, they are pre-trained,” Professor Khanna says, and this speeds up the treatment.

It is also efficient, with a single blood donation from a healthy person providing enough T cells to treat 50 or more patients.

“This is a starting point. Our long term goal is to take it beyond brain cancer and treat other cancers,” Professor Khanna says.

Brandon BioCatalyst CEO Chris Nave

The CUREator incubator, run by Brandon BioCatalyst, is designed to help researchers working on new therapeutics to reach the point where commercial investors will come in.

Brandon BioCatalyst CEO Chris Nave said it was a unique funding approach which created an environment which was more commercial than traditional academic research funding.

“The concept behind CUREator is to provide the grants like an investor. It drives real accountability and efficiency,” Dr Nave said.

Research is licensed into a company and the funding is allocated in stages. The company must meet research goals to receive the next stage.

Brandon BioCatalyst also offers the companies expertise in intellectual property and commercialisation. “We also provide skills, we help the academics with their development programs,” Dr Nave said.

He said there was huge demand for grants. “Each round we’ve had more than 150 applications, lots of them with promise,” he said.

The CSIRO is also backing CUREator and has invested $3m in round two with a further $3m to come in round three.

Later this year the MRFF will launch a $50m BioMedTech Incubator program through CUREator which will widen CUREator’s scope to include medical technology and digital health along side the current focus on therapeutics.