IB Woman
Issue No. 33 - February/March 2007
Food by-products a Surefire success
by Penelope Herbert
In an ideal world, starting a business means quickly making a big profit then going on to stratospheric success. Most people at least go into business knowing, or hoping, they will achieve financial independence ‘some time soon’.
But to go into business knowing the break-even point may be years away takes a strong disposition, absolute confidence in one’s product and the absolute confidence of investors – even government ones.
Formed in 2001 from the Cooperative Research Centre for Tissue Growth and Repair, TGR BioSciences has a foundation of extensive scientific and management expertise. Add to this more than 10 years experience in the discovery, development and commercialisation of novel bioactives from complex, natural product mixtures and investor confidence starts to grow.
While the company has a focus on milk-derived bioactive extracts such as whey, it has also developed the revolutionary SureFire cell-based screening technology to discover biologically active ingredients.
“SureFire is marketed globally to large scale pharmaceutical drug companies, biotechnology companies and research laboratories to speed up the process of drug discovery,” explains TGR Adelaide’s Managing Director, Dr Leanna Read. “Minutes, rather than hours, are taken to measure cell responses such as growth, collagen production and inflammation that predict applications for such conditions as cancer mucositis, appetite control, inflammation, auto-immune diseases and skin damage.”
The technology enables thousands of samples to be screened at one time — and attractive productivity gain for global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to speed up the identification and development of new drugs. TGR BioSciences has seven different SureFire ‘kits’ on the market and is developing many more to gain a solid foothold in this $US60 million market. Principally, TGR discovers and develops therapeutic products for gastroi...
