Protein science team to help Canterbury firms

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Protein

Industrial Research Limited (IRL) is setting up a new "protein science team" to be based at the University of Canterbury Biomolecular Interaction Centre and assisted by PhD and masters students from the university. Gelita, Synlait Milk and Canterbury Scientific are three southern firms that will be working with the science team.

Another newly created Christchurch unit at IRL will be the Manufacturing Innovation Group. The five-strong group should grow to 12 over the next 10 months and will assist Kiwi businesses to solve problems with engineering, whether pointing them in the direction of businesses with existing technology or devising new strategies.

IRL advanced manufacturing technology general manager Richard Templer says the Christchurch team will operate nationwide but focus on Canterbury businesses.

Andrew Muscroft-Taylor is leading the team of five protein scientists. He says while the team is small it is based at the best research facility in the country and Christchurch has a burgeoning biotechnology sector stemming mainly from farming on the Canterbury Plains.

Around 10 companies were on the team's radar as partners in research.

Some are household names, others are still in startup mode and are therefore secretive. IRL had existing partnerships with two companies and others were being negotiated. Mr Muscroft-Taylor says the Christchurch companies are promising and high value, ranging from Woolston gelatine factory Gelita NZ to health science firm Canterbury Scientific.

Synlait milk shifts focus

Milk powder is gold dust for New Zealand. Synlait Milk is working to make it even more valuable.

The Dunsandel company is tiny compared with Fonterra, which would easily beat Synlait in volume-based milk powder.

Instead, Synlait is shifting its focus to producing high-value milk powders that sell well overseas.

Its first foray, Canterbury Pure, is an infant formula that flies off Shanghai shelves for about $90 a kilogram. Chinese toddlers would go through a 900 gram tin about every 10 days.

The company is now working with IRL to break new ground and new market niches. Synlait only performed quality testing in house and used other organisations including IRL and universities for analytical tests.

Gelita bounces back

Gelita New Zealand had a rough 2011.

"We've taken a hammering – geez we've taken a hammering," says plant manager Gary Monk.

"But we still seem to have pretty good support from Gelita AG, which is the German company that owns us."

Gelita makes gelatine from cow hide at its Woolston factory. The cow skin contains collagen which is extracted and treated to make gelatine powder used in everything from jelly babies and yoghurt to inkjet printer paper and pharmaceuticals.

The February 22 quake dealt the largest disruption in the firm's long history but there is a silver lining of sorts. Gelita was given the chance to rebuild its century-old factory. Many buildings on the sprawling property need to be replaced and being able to put almost all of the process under one roof is the aim.

That comes with its own problems. Gelita is a 24-hour, seven-day operation. In a normal year it closes only once, for a week, to do equipment checks and maintenance.

Any repairs and rebuilds of the factory have to be done around a constantly operating system and 60 staff.

Gelita worked with IRL about 10 years ago to develop a new, quicker method using high-pressure-injection technology. That was abandoned as pressure injection was too expensive to run, but Gelita's new method builds on that idea, using enzymes instead.

The good thing about enzymes is that they work under their own steam, which would suit Gelita. If enzymes can be made to carry the necessary chemicals into the gelatine, it would mean a four-day method that would be cheap enough to take up.

IRL's new Canterbury protein science team has approached Gelita and taken some samples to determine whether they could help reduce the gelatine's odour by taking out the molecules that create it, Mr Monk says.

"We've certainly got some complex problems that we can't solve so far because we don't have the specialised knowledge.

"They've obviously got some protein chemistry knowledge and they have expertise in identifying chemicals in gelatine."

The new method, combined with a less-odorous finished product, would make better gelatine, which could be made into gelatine capsules for the pharmaceutical industry.

Diabetes means more work for Canterbury Scientific

Diabetes is a growth business, an affliction of affluence, Canterbury Scientific chief executive Neil Pattinson says.

As the middle classes of developing countries grow, the ailments that beset them change, which essentially means more customers for Canterbury Scientific's customers, who are big names of the global health science business – Siemens, Roche and Beckman Coulter, which test for diabetes and do regular monitoring.

For more than a decade, Canterbury Scientific has been earning a crust supplying the drug companies with haemoglobin controls, which are used in monitoring tests for diabetics round the world.

The demand for the control is secure, with repeat business guaranteed because diabetics have to be retested every three months to monitor their condition, Mr Pattinson says.

Meanwhile, the opportunities provided by the developing countries are staggering.

In China alone, there are now 90 million diabetics – about one of every 14 Chinese.

So it's perfect timing for IRL to extend its reach in Christchurch.

Canterbury Scientific is on the hunt for other medical conditions that, like diabetes, need regular monitoring.

IRL's greater resources help with tests and other work that Canterbury Scientific would struggle to do on its own, Mr Pattinson says.

The company is used to working alongside other scientists.

Canterbury Scientific moved into its Whiteleigh Ave offices and laboratories in Addington about two months before the February 2011 quake.

The new building performed perfectly and Canterbury Scientific opened its doors to other organisations that were not so lucky.

"We have become a hub for scientists here, which is gratifying for us, and a refugium for displaced scientists."

The business has 14 staff, including four PhD-educated researchers who are researching new haemoglobin products as well as others in the same vein as their diabetes control business.

IRL is helping Canterbury Scientific investigate pancreatitis, which seems promising.

Another project is the four-way collaboration of Canterbury Health Laboratories, the University of Canterbury, the British Cambridge University and Canterbury Scientific looking for a way to spot pre-eclampsia in pregnant mothers.

The condition is characterised by a rapid rise in blood pressure that is potentially fatal to mothers and their unborn babies.

Usually identified about 20 to 32 weeks into a pregnancy, the partners are on to a way to spot it quicker.

The affliction is perfect for Canterbury Scientific's product development checklist: all mothers would be tested during each pregnancy, so demand would continue unabated even as the condition is addressed.

"There's really exciting work happening within New Zealand – and particularly in Canterbury – which we are wanting to support and help develop," says Mr Pattinson.

IRL's expansion in Christchurch will be a welcome catalyst for biotech companies to help each other for the benefit of all, Mr Pattinson says.

Canterbury Scientific would be able to do more ambitious development work and do it quicker than it could before, which is crucial for creating new products ahead of global competitors.

"There is a hub . . . around information communication technology in Christchurch; it would be nice to extend that to be a bio-technical hub too.

"This is a nucleus, you could say, of such an entity happening . . . it's not there yet, but it's a damn good start."

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