Phytopharm could be just two years away from going into profit.

Such a statement would, of course, sound ludicrous for most other companies in business almost 15 years, but we are in biotech land where the world is different.

Actually, Phytopharm has never quite fitted into the biotech mould and for years has been referred to in these pages as a botanics business, all its drugs and potions originating from plants.

Now all this is changing, along with the appointment of new chief executive Dr Daryl Rees, who reckons nobody really understands what a botanics company might be, so re-definition might be in order.

Dr Rees, for the past six years chief operating officer at the Godmanchester-based company, has just taken over from founder Dr Richard Dixey, a long-time Buddhist who has gone off to pursue charity work in Asia. Dr Rees, 45, says he wants Phytopharm to be known as not a, but "the pharmaceutical development and functional food company".

It may be he will have to spell it out even more, largely because Phytopharm is a pioneer in this particular conjunction, following the deal struck with Unilever to develop drugs to go in foods.

The main example is putting Hoodia, that plant used for centuries by South African tribesmen to stave off hunger pangs while on hunting trips, into slimming drinks. The new product is on course to be launched, in a small way, Dr Rees says, in the US by the end of next year, with a global explosion the following year.

Some may query what is going on, at least, those who ever look for slimming pills online - the internet is stuffed with Hoodia - but Dr Rees says this is not The Real McCoy, has not been safety tested, and in any case, often isn't Hoodia at all, just caffeine: "It's a fraud," he says.
"We tackle them and say they are infringing our patent, that we are doing it properly, with all the testing."

But the infringers will remain at the fringe of the market, whereas products like Unilever's Slimfast are very much mainstream. The brand took a hit when the Atkins' Diet was at the height of its popularity, with sales more than halving from $1 billion a year. They are back up to half a billion and growing, but the big resurgence is expected when Hoodia is added to the mix.

Meanwhile, Phytopharm is bringing in half a million pounds a year from its treatment for canine eczema, and this is expected to double.

There was a hiccup over the Alzheimer's reversal drug, Cogane when clinical trials failed to show much difference between those taking the tablets and those being given the placebo, but Dr Rees says the three-month trial was not long enough, and that a subsequent study has shown that Cogane is effective.

He says this is the whole problem with treatments for Alzheimer's, it takes so long to know if they really work, which means it takes a very long time before drug company investment can be realised, resulting in few firms being that keen on finding a cure.

"It's going to be 2012 before we get there," Dr Rees says, "so we need to look at other targets for Cogane, other neuro-degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, spread the net wider."

This said, Alzheimer's is a $1 billion market and there are only two other products in development which approach what Phytopharm is doing with Cogane - actually re-igniting neurones in the brain.

Other targets Dr Rees wants to tackle in what will be a much wider portfolio, include motor neurone disease.

The common thread is plants, mostly Chinese, but why not a red hot poker or snowdrop from my garden?

"The Chinese have always had a very sophisticated way of recording how medicines made from plants worked, so there could be useful plants in your garden, they just haven't been recorded as such."

Phytopharm does not necessarily extract chemicals from acres of specially seeded plants, more often creating chemical simulations.

Even so, Dr Rees says he allowed himself to be headhunted seven years ago by Dr Dixey because "I was hugely attracted to the whole concept of plant medicines and a completely different approach to the way the pharmaceutical industry was going.

"It was a rebellion against high-throughput screening for new compounds. All the passion had been pulled out.

"The great thing about plant medicine is it's like a detective story, you have to try and find out how plant medicines work."

Dr Rees joined Phytopharm as chief scientific officer before becoming COO. He had spent 12 years with Wellcome and lectured in clinical pharmacology at University College London as well as acting as a consultant to a number of drugs companies.

Dr Dixey, who departed last week, said: "You ought to speak to Daryl, he's one of the good guys."

JC

Source Cambridge News