Bioscience celebrates its 2014 innovators

Cancer diagnostic company Pacific Edge has been named as the New Zealand’s top bioscience company and Dr Paul Tan as the Janssen Distinguished Biotechnologist at the 2014 NZBIO Conference Awards.

And in a new category introduced this year The Ferrier Research Institute has been given the Best New Innovation award.

Dr George Slim, CEO of NZBIO, says Dunedin-based Pacific Edge’s expansion into the United States has been hugely successful. The company’s stock price has risen by more than 100% and pushed Pacific Edge into the NZX50. 

“The judges say as the Supreme winner of the NZ Innovation Council Award last year and with its high media profile, Pacific Edge is doing a tremendous amount to raise the profile and credibility of listed biotech companies in New Zealand,” Dr Slim says.

The top biotechnologist for 2014, Dr Paul Tan now works as an independent consultant to several biotechnology companies in New Zealand. Through the past 20 years, however, he has worked in a variety of roles in the sector and as chairman of NZBIO in 2013 helped it to successfully transition from government backing to a self-funding organisation.

Dr Tan was managing director of Living Cell Technologies (LCT) in 2004, its CEO in 2008-2010 and again medical officer for one year during 2013. He helped LCT take Diabecell, the world’s first animal to human cell therapy programme, to regulatory approval for clinical trials under international guidelines.

Dr Tan has also been CEO of CenTech and the deputy-director and head of research at Genesis Research and Development 1994-2002, where he managed the intellectual property programme, patent filings and clinical trials. 

The judges said Dr Tan’s leadership in the sector is outstanding. 

The Ferrier Research Institute’s (FRI) best innovation award sponsored by Janssen relates to its work on developing an orally available triple-negative breast cancer drug. 

Dr Slim says the project is well advanced and built on a solid relationship between researchers in New Zealand and the United States. The judges note medicinal chemistry research is strong in New Zealand with leading centres in Wellington and Auckland.

FRI is based at Victoria University in Wellington, led by Drs Peter Tyler and Gary Evans, and is responsible for the design and synthesis of potent inhibitor compounds. 

“FRI has developed a number of potent inhibitors of enzymes involved in diseases,” Dr Slim says. “This latest one affects fast growing cells such as in breast cancer and has been licenced to an award winning company in the US who will bring it to market.”