Sir Elton John gave an inspiring and eye-opening keynote speech yesterday about the success and shortcomings of HIV/AIDS research, and I know many of us are still thinking about how we can further the science and make the necessary improvements in education to make a difference. Today, BIO is featuring Sir Philip Cohen, another Knight of the British Empire, often seen as the ‘father’ of kinase biology/phosphorylation research, and one of the most cited scientists in Europe. Sir Cohen, Director of the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit, University of Dundee, and Director of the Scottish Institute for Cell Signaling, is speaking in a Breakout Session this morning titled ‘Where to Find the Drugs: The Ubiquitin Component Systems, Are They the Next Generation Kinases?’ He is cited as saying “I am very confident that the (Ubiquitin Proteasome System) market has the potential to become even bigger than Kinases.” The speaker lineup at this 10:00 a.m. session is impressive, including Dr. Frank Mercurio, CSO, BioTheryX, Dr. Mark Manfredi, Director of Cancer Pharmacology, Takeda/Millenium, Prof. Mike Tyers, CH Waddington Professor of Systems Biology at Univ. Edinburgh, Dr. Giovanni Ferrara, ITI Life Sciences Advisory Board, and Dr. Sheridan Snyder, Founder, BioCatalyst International.
This session was organized by the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit, the Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling (SCILLS) and ITI Life Sciences, and is supported by Scottish Development International. I sat down with Neil Wilkie, Programme Manager at ITI Life Sciences on Tuesday, to discuss their involvement in the session and UPS in general. Neil said that ITI is literally an “Intermediary Technology Initiative” in which the Scottish government has earmarked 150M £ over a period of 10 years to promote the growth of biotechnology in the region. He explained that ITI did an exhaustive and highly analytical search of the scientific and patent literature a few years ago to determine the ‘next big thing’ in drug discovery. They found a ‘sweet spot’ with the UPS system, with mentions of it in the literature rapidly rising, but with room in the intellectual property space for them to start carving out a niche in the area, towards the goal of stimulating growth in Scotland Biotech. Perhaps coincidentally, Sir Cohen lives and works in Scotland and obviously thinks there is something behind their assessment. I think this session is a ‘must see’ and I will be there! It begins at 10:00 a.m. today in Room B304, and if you can’t be there you can look for live updates from me on Twitter at @comprendia.

I spent part of Monday morning in the Ireland Pavilion (#3303) talking with them about the biotechnology they’re highlighting at the BIO convention, as well as the region as well. I spoke with Jonathan O’Connell, Chief Financial Officer of Ireland’s Merrion Pharmaceuticals, about the announcement they made last week (PDF) regarding preliminary results on Orazol™, a tablet formulation of the Novartis drug Zometa®. The company acquired a unique drug delivery technology from Elan in 2004 which boosts absorption in the intestine. As a result, therapeutics that are normally given only by injection can be formulated as tablets, leading to many benefits, including safer treatment, less pain, and improved pharmaeconomics. At BIO 2009, Merrion is focused on partnering their Phase 2 compounds, and continues to develop and seek out therapeutics which are amenable to their technology, including, notably, insulin, which they are working on with Novo Nordisk. Personally, I found the technology to be very promising and I suggest that you seek them out in the Ireland Pavilion.

I also spoke with Sean Davis from Enterprise Ireland (EI), which ‘fosters’ companies like Merrion in their early development phase. Davis says that EI has been around for 35 years and currently takes on 70-80 companies per year. The EI does 5-6 months of due diligence for each company and covers R&D aspects, commercialization, and technology transfer. EI benefits from the Irish government’s commitment to promote biotechnology in the region, stemming back 20 years ago when they began to focus on education. Their goal at BIO 2009? Presenting six of their ‘success stories’ from the region and partnering with US entities who realize the potential of companies who have been well-positioned for success by EI. I highly suggest visiting the Ireland Pavilion, #3303 in the exhibit hall.