Dr Deborah Rathjen

Alan Kohler: Well, Deborah, in your announcement this week about the phase two trials of BNC210, you said, or the announcement said, that Professor Alan Young of King's College London, who was also the principal investigator on the study, described it as a potential paradigm shift. What does that mean?

Deborah Rathjen: Yeah, he used that term, paradigm shift, because in the treatment of anxiety disorders there hasn't been a new drug with a new mechanism of action, a new way of working, for several decades. We've seen a lot of benzodiazepines in years past, you know, they were first introduced in the sixties.

AK: And that includes Valium, of course.

DR: So... that's Valium, that's right. And the drug that we compared our drug, BNC210, with is Lorazepam, also known as Ativan. And that's used obviously for anxiety disorders. It's used for panic attacks particularly. And so, you know, the paradigm shift comes from the fact that there's really been no new drugs that bring about a new way of working for a considerable period of time. And also, BNC210 is free of the side effects that are associated with the current medications. So, in comparing it with Lorazepam, which is a relative of Valium, we saw that BNC210 wasn't sedative, doesn't have the potential for addiction, and doesn't make you lose your memory. And these, of course, are all things that the benzodiazepines class, like Valium, do when you take them. In fact...

AK: And would it be fair, would it be fair, sorry I interrupted. You were going to say in fact...

DR: No, no, go ahead, go ahead, please.

AK: I was just going to say, is the essence of the phase two result that it works?

DR: It works. It works in a patient population where there's a really big need for a new treatment. People with GAD have GAD for a long period of time.

AK: What does that stand for?

DR: Generalised Anxiety Disorder. And it's one of the largest groupings of the anxiety disorders. So, you know, one in seven Australians has a diagnosed anxiety disorder and some six percent of Australians will have this particular form of anxiety, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, at some point in their life. But it does, it's more of a chronic condition. And because the drugs like Valium have so many side effects and most worrisome addiction and sedation, they can't use these drugs.

AK: A lot of, a lot of anti-depressants are used for anti-anxiety, I think. Does it work that other way?

DR: They are.

AK: Is BNC210 able to be used as an anti-depressant?

DR: We have shown in some of our animal studies that BNC210 does have anti-depressant activities which makes this drug doubly exciting. You mentioned the anti-depressants being used for anxiety. Of course the anti-depressants have their own issues, amongst them sexual dysfunction and weight changes which are troublesome for people with both depression and anxiety. But also for young people they have a tendency to increase thoughts of suicide, which of course is really counterproductive to what we're trying to achieve with these drugs. So, again, BNC210 could be a real game changer.

AK: What about PTSD?

DR: Well, we've got a trial ongoing in PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and we have high hopes for this particular illness as well. We believe that BNC210 works on pathways that are activated when you feel fearful, and that's one of the things that this trial in the anxiety patients showed. And this is an important thing for people with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. So, we could move to 210 into the depression setting, particularly in depression which is associated with anxiety in conditions like bipolar, major depressive disorder, we've got an ongoing trial in PTSD, and one of the other areas that we're exploring as well, and where some of the pharma companies feel that BNC210 has some potential is in the treatment of agitation in dementia patients. So, in Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson's disease, for example.

AK: So, will you move now to a licensing agreement of some sort with big pharma?

DR: That's, that's really what is up next on our agenda for BNC210. As we continue to enrol patients into our PTSD trial we will be reaching out to all of those companies who have closely followed BNC210. In fact, one of them has already contacted us and...

AK: Which one?

DR: That's, that's, that's not able to be disclosed, but there are a number of global pharma companies that are very strong in the area of neuroscience and that have been responsible for developing and marketing many of the old anti-depressants and, of course, the drugs like Valium. And in this area you need a partner. And we call them partners because we want, as a small company, we want to work alongside these larger companies as they develop BNC210. We, we believe they have the financial capacity to really broaden the range of testing in humans that, in clinical trials, that BNC210 undergoes. And we also feel that they've got the marketing muscle, should we be successful with BNC210, to fully commercialise BNC210 in a global market.

AK: Are you getting enough interest, do you think, to have an auction?

DR: That's, that's what we're driving towards, yes. And, of course, we've got our options open. So, as I said, we're recruiting in the PTSD trial and we've also got enough capital to see ourselves well past that phase two data readout in that trial. So, we're not in a rush. We can do, we can do the best deal with the best company for the further development of BNC210.

AK: That's great, Deborah. Thanks very much.

DR: Great. Thanks, Alan.