Five for life

LIFESCIENCES:At plants around the country, healthcare companies are employing people to work on such prospects as finding new ways to extend the effectiveness of current drugs, more palatable methods of drug delivery and how to shut down the immune system so that doctors can get on with their work

ABBOTT IRELAND

Going for the mature brands

MANY OF the world’s largest healthcare companies have a presence in Ireland and Abbott has been around longer than most. It established commercial operations in Dublin in 1946 and has had manufacturing operations here since 1974. Today, it has 13 sites around the country and directly employs almost 4,000 people.

These are involved in a range of business and manufacturing areas in such fields as diabetes, nutritional products (covering both feeds and feeding devices), pharmaceuticals, vascular care and diagnostics.

Abbott also has an operation in Dublin to manage mature brands. It looks after established off-patent products and helps them to build existing and new markets around the world.

So it might look at promoting sugar-free formulations of existing medications to make them more available to people with diabetes or particular product formulations to suit warmer climates.

“Most companies typically invest heavily in supporting new products to market. This innovative approach by Abbott in providing dedicated support to its mature brands, in particular its primary care products, will ensure these products can continue to be accessed by patients in both established and emerging markets,” said Olivier Bohuon, senior vice president, International Pharmaceuticals, Abbott, in 2009 when a new unit was being opened in Santry, north Dublin.

Abbott’s mature products management unit in Dublin provides manufacturing, commercial and regulatory support to Abbott affiliates in developed and emerging markets in Russia, India and China.

MERRION PHARMACEUTICALS

Oral drugs for diabetes and cancer

Most would agree that it is more convenient to take a medication by mouth than by injection. So Merrion Pharma is looking to make that switch for diabetes and cancer therapies with their proprietary GIPET formulation.

The company, which was established in 2003 to commercialise technologies acquired from Elan Corporation, now has operations in Dublin and the US and is working with Danish multinational healthcare company Novo Nordisk to develop diabetes medications, including insulin analogues, that can be swallowed.

If patients could take these medications orally, it would not only be easier for them to comply with therapeutic regimes, but the drugs themselves could be safer and more effective at lower doses, according to Dr John Lynch, Merrion’s chief executive. They would also be more widely used, he says.

The GIPET formulations are now in human trials and a product could be on the market within about five years, says Lynch.

So what are the hurdles they have had to clear to get this far?

“Finding pharmaceutical production and laboratory space to grow the company is one of the greatest challenges facing life sciences companies,” says Lynch.

“We have been very fortunate, through a lot of hard work, to find truly world class facilities here in Citywest.”

Assembling a board of directors that specialised in the industry and had international experience was also a tough call, he adds, describing it as “a real coup” that Merrion attracted Harry Stratford, founder of Shire Pharmaceuticals, as a senior independent director.

Getting the first major licensing deal can be difficult too, according to Lynch.

“The big partner has to be comfortable that you are not too high risk,” he says. “However since we have got the Novo Nordisk deal, this has been a major validation to other companies.”

OPSONA THERAPEUTICS

Targeting the immune system

Turning off the immune system doesn’t sound like a great plan, but turning off just the part of it that is causing trouble could help in many situations, from avoiding rejection of transplanted organs to dampening down inflammation in arthritis.

That’s why Opsona Therapeutics, a Dublin-based company, is developing drugs and vaccines to specifically target “switches” in the body that control particular immune responses.

The company was established in 2004 by Australian biochemist Dr Mark Heffernan along with Trinity academics Prof Luke O’Neill, Prof Kingston Mills and Prof Dermot Kelleher.

It exploits technology coming from the Trinity founders’ research into inflammation and autoimmune diseases, much of it funded by Science Foundation Ireland.

Opsona has links with industry giants Pfizer (which bought Wyeth last year) and Merck, and with Australian biotech company CSL. It has raised a total of about €27 million in venture capital.

At present, the focus is mainly on two molecules involved in triggering immune responses, TLR-2 and NLRP3, which O’Neill describes as being “hot targets”. “Blocking them could be wonderful for anti-inflammatory medicines,” he says.

Opsona plans to run early human trials next year for their TLR-2 blocker in kidney transplants, and pre-clinical data suggest they may eventually look at testing it for use in treating heart failure too, notes O’Neill.

Meanwhile the small molecule NLRP3 has been implicated in diabetes, furring of arteries and Alzheimer’s disease and Opsona is at the lead optimisation stage with a programme to target it in the body.

It is an expensive and time-consuming game, according to O’Neill. “You need big bucks, patience and perseverance. It’s a very long and high-tech process,” he says.

So he welcomes the Government’s plans to boost venture capital funds in Ireland and encourage American VCs to hunt here. “You would be optimistic about that,” he says.

AUDIT DIAGNOSTICS

Getting answers quickly

Everyone wants rapid answers these days and patients are no exception. Ideally in the future we will routinely visit a clinic and get a rapid diagnosis within minutes or have our health status monitored from a non-invasive sample, such as a tiny drop of blood.

Cork company Audit Diagnostics has moved into this area with Liqui-Stat, a chemical system for use in point-of-care diagnostic devices. It is also a collaborative partner with the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute at Dublin City University, where they are working on a new test to detect thyroid disorders more accurately.

The company, which was founded in 1993 and now distributes its products to more than 100 countries, also develops and manufactures reagents and analysers for lab tests, sanitising products and a screening system for for cervical cancer.

“The biggest challenge we have faced recently probably is the lack of available funding from banks and slow payments from all around the world,” says Michael O’Donovan, the founder and chief executive.He adds that market uncertainty and costly regulatory requirements can also be hurdles.

On a more positive note, he points out that there are opportunities, in near-patient monitoring particularly for those companies that can tap into emerging markets such as India, China, the Middle East and Africa.

“You have a requirement for remote areas where there are vast populations but no access to healthcare screening,” says O’Donovan.

“Liqui-Stat and other near-patient testing products we are developing are suitable for those markets.”

CREGANNA-TACTX MEDICAL

From electronics to minimally invasive catheters

In the medical devices sector, Creganna-Tactx Medical is Ireland’s largest indigenous company. The firm, which has its headquarters in Galway, supplies products, technologies and services to medical device and lifescience companies. It employs more than 1,000 people, manufactures on three continents and collaborates with academics on innovative research and development projects.

When the company was founded 20 years ago as Creganna, it provided engineering solutions to the electronics industry.

In 1998, it diversified into the medical device market. It has never looked back since, establishing a presence on the eastern coast of the US and building up expertise in the design and manufacture of minimally invasive catheters – such as the long narrow tubes used to deliver stents into blood vessels - and specialty needles.

This year, Creganna acquired California-based Tactx Medical, substantially increasing the size and reach of the enterprise.

The Innovation Centre at Creganna-Tactx has spawned several products, including PoleVault, a kink-resistant tube that delivers a balloon into a clogged artery to widen it. Its portfolio also includes MicroMuscle, an electroactive polymer that can swell and contract to help guide delivery in the body, and it is currently working with groups in the National Centre for Laser Applications and at the Regenerative Medicine Institute in NUI Galway.

The company has no plans to rest on its laurels, according to Helen Ryan, the chief executive, it must continue to innovate so as to keep pace with the changing demands of the sector and emerging markets such as India and China.

“One of the key differences I see in some areas is that, historically, it was about getting products to a high performance level, but now it’s about how you can get that technology to more people in a cost-effective way. So innovation has to be very broad in both products and business models.”