DANIEL RIORDAN meets a New Zealand businessman whose modest goal is to help rid the world of diabetes.
Neville Jordan's last company was one of the great success stories of New Zealand business.
Hutt Valley-based MAS Technology kick-started the local microwave telecommunications industry, picked up a slew of export awards and listed on the Nasdaq in 1997.
A year later it was taken over by a global giant and its founder walked away with almost $60 million.
So what do you do for an encore?
If you're Neville Jordan, you think big.
Two years ago, between companies, he told the Business Herald he would love to build another Glaxo, referring to the global pharmaceutical giant founded by a New Zealander.
Now, as chairman and chief executive of Protemix Corporation, he thinks he may have that chance.
The company's modest mission: "to rid the world of diabetes".
Mr Jordan's involvement in Protemix started with an approach two years ago from Professor Garth Cooper, of the Auckland University School of Medicine.
During his doctoral work at Oxford, Professor Cooper had found a new hormone that helped counter diabetes. On his return to New Zealand, he teamed with Dr John Baker, head of diabetes services at South Auckland Health, who had made his own discoveries in the area.
They needed someone with experience in management and raising capital, and Mr Jordan fitted perfectly.
Rounding out the list of investors is leading international tax lawyer (and winemaker) Tony Molloy, QC. Auckland University, which leases space to the company, has a small stake.
A Government grant of $700,000 helped Protemix get started, and now the company is looking to raise what Mr Jordan calls "tens of millions" from new investors.
Most of that will probably come from Europe and the United States, he says. Apart from the relatively small investor pool here, New Zealand investors are generally not well informed about biotechnology.
Mr Jordan, aged 58, said it did not take long for him to decide to get involved.
"I'd always looked at the pharmaceutical industry thinking what sort of models could apply to telecommunications. Telecommunications can be very beneficial to communities in bringing medical and emergency communications.
"But the opportunity to get involved and actually research a drug to treat a huge disease like diabetes was just too good to turn down."
How does Protemix compare with MAS?
"There's still the element of discovery, development and finance, but the big difference is here we're talking about fundamental science whereas MAS Technology was about applying known components.
"This is operating right at the frontier of science and that's the exciting thing about it."
Protemix's scientific advisory board includes some of the world's best medical brains, including the top Government diabetes researchers in the US, China and Japan.
Ten of the 13-strong board met in Auckland a week ago for an update on the company's progress.
So far so good. The main product is in phase II clinical trials in Auckland with another year to run.
How long before it is on the market is anyone's guess.
Several other products are in earlier stages of development.
The game plan?
Mr Jordan says an emerging pharmaceutical company like Protemix needs a product "nearish" to market, a good pipeline with plenty of candidate products coming through, and a strong research platform.
Protemix has all three and feedback from potential international investors has been extremely positive.
Protemix targets Type 2 diabetes, the insulin-deficient or -resistant form that affects 80 to 90 per cent of diabetes sufferers and for which there are few established therapies.
Diet and exercise can help control the condition early on, but later it can lead to heart and kidney failure, blindness and gangrene.
More than 100,000 New Zealanders suffer from the condition.
The first drug is aimed at preventing heart failure from diabetes. The next drug in the queue, which is still being tested in the laboratory, is aimed at stopping liver complications.
Mr Jordan says more than $US5 billion ($12 billion) is spent globally each year on diabetes drugs, excluding insulin, and that figure is growing at 19 per cent a year.
Although he could just relax and enjoy the millions he made from MAS, Mr Jordan is happy to be working fulltime again, meeting the challenges of management and capital raising for a fledgling company he sees as a future winner - maybe even another Glaxo.
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