Date: Sep 28, 2012 Author: Ron Leuty Source: bizjournals (
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AvidBiotics Corp.'s got a beef with its freshly minted multimillion-dollar deal with DuPont — and if things go as the small South San Francisco biotech company plans, it will have chicken and vegetables as well.
AvidBiotics inked the deal Sept. 17 with DuPont's health and nutrition business to develop a targeted protein to kill a strain of Escherichia coli, or E. coli, in meat processing plants. DuPont gave AvidBiotics upfront cash, took a minority stake in the eight-employee company and will pay all research and development costs.
DuPont also could make a second investment if the technology hits undisclosed milestones. The total value of the deal is in the "tens of millions of dollars," said AvidBiotics President Jim Knighton.
The end game, Knighton said, is a possible Food and Drug Administration approval of AvidBiotics' engineered Purocin proteins within 18 months.
Currently the beef industry attempts to mass-kill bacteria such as E. coli with steam, hot water, lactic acid and other means. Those methods and testing have cut E. coli discoveries in raw ground beef to less than 1 percent following a deadly 1993 outbreak. But each incident is a health and public relations nightmare.
"People are always looking for new interventions," said Janet Riley, senior vice president of public affairs at the American Meat Institute.
AvidBiotics, founded in 2005 by Knighton and former Genentech Inc. R&D executive Dr. Dave Martin, could have a big impact. Its spray-on Purocin proteins are custom-built to latch onto specific bacteria, poke a hole in the bugs' cell envelopes and kill them. The technology also works against other food-borne pathogens such as salmonella in poultry and listeria in prepackaged meats, Knighton said.
The technology is especially important to DuPont following its $6.5 billion acquisition last year of food and enzyme company Danisco A/S. "They are committing significant resources to this project," Knighton said.
Eventually AvidBiotics aims to replace antibiotics in animal feed. The company retains the right to use the technology in animal health, human therapeutics, disease prevention and diagnostics.
If AvidBiotics reaches into the animal feed and animal health business, its proteins could have a sweeping impact on the industry and human health. Many scientists argue that overuse of antibiotics by factory farms could lead to antibiotic resistance in human consumers and animals.
