Spinout company set to revolutionise homegrown cancer treatments
Ternarx group. Image credit: WEHI. 1G Royal Pde Parkville 3052 VIC Australia. www.wehi.edu.au
19 June 2024
Australia has cemented its role in becoming a major player in the next-generation of medicines with the launch of Ternarx – a globally competitive biotechnology company dedicated to finding new treatments for hard to treat cancers.
The WEHI spinout is the first of its kind in Australia dedicated to developing targeted protein degrader medicines and technology, a powerful new tool for destroying disease-causing proteins that cannot be targeted by conventional drugs.
Professor Susan Charman, Director of the Centre for Drug Candidate Optimisation (CDCO), Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences is a member of the Ternax Scientific Advisory Board.
Ternarx, which is backed by $15 million in funding from the Medical Research Future Fund’s (MRFF) Frontier Health and Medical Research initiative and with support from WEHI, has been officially launched by the Australian Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler, at WEHI.
Around 150,000 Australians are diagnosed with cancer every year.
While scientists have uncovered many of the drivers of cancer, about 80% of all disease-causing proteins have been considered “undruggable”.
New biotechnology company, Ternarx, aims at changing this statistic through the development of targeted protein degrader (TPD) technology, which is designed to destroy these “undruggable” proteins.
Unlike conventional drugs that only inhibit the activity of proteins, TPDs can target and destroy disease-causing proteins, completely removing the proteins from the cancer.
Ternarx is the first company of its kind in Australia, focusing on the development of TPD medicines and technology.
In 2023, the MRFF’s Frontier Health and Medical Research initiative awarded $15 million in funding to establish the Australian Centre for Targeted Therapeutics (ACTT) – a collaboration between experts from WEHI, the Children’s Cancer Institute and Monash University. WEHI has now spun out Ternarx to form a globally competitive biotech company and commercialise the ACTT technology.
Professor Charman and the CDCO team will lead Ternax biopharmaceutical investigations into the company’s drug candidates.
“Understanding the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion properties of novel target protein degrader molecules will be critical to realising the full potential of this exciting new class of drugs. The CDCO team looks forward to working alongside our research partners to help optimise the delivery of these drugs and, ultimately, positively impact the lives of many people around the world."
The full, original article was published by WEHI and can be read here: https://www.wehi.edu.au/news/wehi-spinout-company-set-to-revolutionise-homegrown-cancer-treatments/