Issue
4 Volume 2
September 5, 2007 |
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Bigger
Is Better
A
series of acquisitions has transformed
Commonwealth Biotechnologies into a
larger company with a global presence in
contract biotech research.
by
Peter Galuszka
Since
1992, Commonwealth Biotechnologies, Inc.
has ridden the wild, wild surf of the
biotechnology sector. Founded by three Virginia Commonwealth
University professors, the small, publicly held
firm has alternately prospered and struggled as
a provider of contract biotech research
services.
Like
many biotech outfits, CBI has reinvented
itself more than once, experiencing both
exhilarating growth and
stomach-wrenching decline. In recent
years, its stock price slid
to near $1-per-share levels, even as it
gained footholds in such
fast-growing sectors as forensic DNA
research and DNA sequencing for use in
thwarting bio warfare threats from
terrorists.
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D'Sylva
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This year, however, CBI may have broken out
of its pattern of moving one step
forward and one step backward.
Engineering the purchase of biotech labs in Australia
and Great Britain, the Chesterfield
County-based company is positioning
itself as a global player in the
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fields
of peptide, DNA
and protein sequencing and monoclonal
antibody production. The
company expects the mergers will
give it enough scale to persuade major
biotech and pharmaceutical players to
let it take on some of their research
projects. So confident is the company in
its prospects that Dr. Paul D’Sylva, CBI’s new CEO,
works out
of San Diego with the goal of breaking into
California’s burgeoning biotech
markets.
For
all its global ambitions, CBI remains committed to
the Greater Richmond region. The
headquarters is located in a
state-of-the-art, super-secure office-laboratory compound in suburban
Chesterfield County. “We have no
intention of leaving Richmond,” says
D’Sylva. “The reality is that I had
very little value walking up and down
the halls [in Richmond] telling people
what to do. I’m better driving mergers
and acquisitions on the West Coast.”
Sometimes-skeptical
stock analysts have taken notice of the
changes. In recent months, CBI’s stock
price has climbed more than 25 percent
to more than $3 per share. Some analysts
have improved their outlook, upgrading
to a “hold” from a “sell”
rating.
Key
to the new success, says D’Sylva, is
the spate of mergers that CBI began
about a year ago. CBI purchased
Australian biochemistry firm Mimotopes
Pty Ltd. from owner PharmAust Ltd.,
which took a 39.5 percent ownership
stake in CBI in the transaction.
D’Sylva, an Australian who has a PhD
in finance from the University of
Arizona and has spent his career in the
biotech and pharmaceutical industries,
had been managing director of Welshpool-based
PharmAust.
More.
600 Jobs For
Henrico
Henrico-based Bostwick Laboratories
is
expanding its medical lab services.
Governor
Timothy M. Kaine announced today that
Bostwick Laboratories, a medical laboratory
providing services to physicians, patients
and managed care organizations, will invest
$4.6 million to expand its Henrico County
headquarters facility. The expansion will
create 600 new jobs over the next three
years.
“The Greater Richmond area offers an
excellent talent pool of skilled health care
workers,” said Governor Kaine. “Bostwick
Laboratories’ specialized prostate pathology
labs and innovative research in urologic
diseases will help improve the lives of
Virginians and people around the world. We
look forward to continue to partner with
this highly-respected health care company.”
Bostwick Laboratories is a full-service
laboratory specializing in urological
pathology, featuring a staff of
board-certified pathologists dedicated to
the diagnosis, treatment, and management of
prostate cancer and all urologic conditions.
In addition to its U.S. facilities, the
company operates a facility in London,
England. In 2005, the Greater Richmond
Chamber of Commerce recognized Bostwick
Laboratories as one of the fastest growing
enterprises in the area for the last five
years.
Dr. David Bostwick, President and CEO,
stated, “The decision to expand our
facilities in Virginia was based on the
Richmond area’s available labor pool,
favorable cost of living, quality of life,
and centralized East Coast location.”
The Virginia
Economic Development Partnership (VEDP)
worked with the company to identify tax
credits that would benefit Bostwick
Laboratories. The company is eligible to
receive the Major Business Facility Jobs Tax
Credit for this expansion.
James B.
Donati, Jr., Chairman of the Henrico County
Board of Supervisors, said, “I am pleased
that Henrico’s pro-business efforts and its
business environment were instrumental in
Bostwick Laboratories’ decision to stay and
grow in Henrico. Their continuing commitment
to Henrico is welcomed and is confirmation
of our efforts to provide a location that
offers dynamic companies like Bostwick the
opportunity to prosper.” (July
3, 2007)
More.
VCU
Collaboration Across Countries Delegates from China
help in large-scale study on genetics and
depression
Virginia Commonwealth
University hosted a week-long training
session for a delegation of psychiatrists
from China involved in a research study on
the molecular genetics of depression.
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This study is a collaboration between
doctors based at VCU and in Shanghai, China,
and researchers from the University of
Oxford in England.
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The delegation’s visit was the result of
VCU’s partnership with Fudan University,
part of VCU’s efforts to internationalize
its campuses. During his presidency, VCU
President Eugene P. Trani has established
significant linkages with universities in
the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia. By
the end of 2007, VCU will have developed
university-wide partnerships with 15
universities, most with academic medical
centers, that will include universities in
India, South America and Mexico.
The workshop, to aid in the assessment of
depression in study participants, took place
July 23 through July 26. The goal of the
study is to identify genetic variants which
impact on the
risk for recurrent major depression.
According to Kenneth S.
Kendler, M.D., a professor of psychiatry and
human genetics in VCU’s School of Medicine
and one of the investigators in this study,
the focus of the pilot project is to gather
1,000 women with cases of recurrent major
depression and 1,000 women without the
condition to be used as controls. Study
participants will be made up of women who
are of Han Chinese background – so the
participants will be genetically and
ethnically homogeneous. Additionally, he
said, women in China have very low rates of
alcohol and drug abuse.
“As one of the world’s largest studies of
depression, we expect the results to have
implications for our understanding of the
causes and treatment of this common and
disabling condition,” said Kendler. (July
31, 2007)
More.
Hepatitis
C Cured, VCU Concludes
The
current treatment for Hepatitis C can be
considered a cure, VCU researcher
announces. Disease is leading
cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer and the
need for transplants.
The use of
peginterferon alone, or in combination with
ribavirin, points to a cure for hepatitis C,
the leading cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer
and the need for liver transplant, a
Virginia Commonwealth University researcher
said today.
Mitchell Shiffman, M.D., professor in the
VCU School of Medicine, and chief of
hepatology and medical director of the Liver
Transplant Program at the Virginia
Commonwealth University Medical Center, is
one of the lead investigators in the study,
which was presented at the 38th annual
Digestive Disease Week conference in
Washington, D.C. VCU was among about 40
sites worldwide studying pegylated
interferon alfa-2a, manufactured by Roche
Inc.
Nearly all -
99 percent - of patients with hepatitis C
who were treated successfully with peginterferon alone, or in combination with
ribavirin, had no detectable virus up to
seven years later. Researchers say this data
validates the use of the word "cure" when
describing hepatitis C treatment as
successful treatment is defined as having
undetectable hepatitis C virus in the blood
six months following treatment.
"We at VCU are encouraged by this data
because it is rare in the treatment of
life-threatening viral diseases that we can
tell patients they may be cured," Shiffman
said. "In hepatitis C today, we are able to
help some patients achieve an outcome that
effectively enables them to put their
disease behind them."
The results
are based on a long-term follow-up study
designed to determine if the virus
re-emerges in patients who have achieved
treatment success. The study reviewed 997
patients, either mono-infected with chronic
HCV or co-infected HCV and HIV, who achieved
a sustained viral response (SVR) following
treatment with either Pegasys (peginterferon
alfa-2a) monotherapy or combination therapy
with Pegasys and ribavirin.
After successful treatment, researchers
monitored serum levels of HCV once a year
for an average of 4.1 years (range 0.4 to 7
years). Of the 997 patients, 989 maintained
undetectable levels of HCV. The remaining
eight patients tested positive for HCV at an
average of two years following treatment
completion. The study found that these eight
patients exhibited no consistency in age,
gender or HCV genotype, and it has not yet
been determined if these patients
experienced a relapse or if they were
re-infected with HCV. (May 21, 2007)
More.
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