A PERTH-BASED company believes the production and export of genetically modified mice and rats is the first step in its plan to establish a large biopharmaceutical operation in Western Australia.
A PERTH-BASED company believes the production and export of genetically modified mice and rats is the first step in its plan to establish a large biopharmaceutical operation in Western Australia.
With high growth, multi-million-dollar turnover and an established global client base, Ozgene has already achieved positive cash flow, turning over $3.68 million in revenue last year. And the company’s growth is driving expansion into larger, custom-built premises in Technology Park in Bentley.
This $3.68 million turnover was up from $2.1 million in revenue on the previous year, an increase from initial turnover of $600,000 in the first year of operation.
Ozgene director and CEO Dr Frank Koentgen said the company’s aim was to imitate the growth and success of companies such as Roche Pharmaceuticals.
“The overall aim is to build in Perth a fully integrated biopharmaceutical facility,” he said.
“What this means is to discover the gene, validate it, design the drug for it, produce the drug and sell the drug.
“It’s very ambitious, but I don’t think its unachievable.”
Dr Koentgen said the company currently employed 35 staff and would need significant staff increases to meet demand.
“We will be looking at significant staff increases over the next three years – probably double the staff each year for the next three to four years,” he said.
Dr Koentgen said there was increasing demand for GM mice and rats due to the growth in the biotechnology field.
“GM mice and rats are currently the only animal models that allow researchers to precisely mimic human conditions of genetic disorders at a molecular level,” he said.
GM mice and rats represented the most sophisticated and valuable tools in the functional genomics industry, Dr Koentgen said.
The company was founded in 1999 by Dr Koentgen and his wife, Dr Gabi Suess, who is Ozgene’s chief scientific officer.
Dr Koentgen and Dr Suess both have more than 15 years’ experience in the specialised field of generating GM mice and rats, starting their professional lives working for Roche in Switzerland and later in the US.
They established Ozgene in Perth in consultation with the Animal Resources Centre at Murdoch University after heading up a similar facility in Melbourne.
Ozgene specialises in the generation of several types of GM mice using embryonic stem cells.
Ozgene also has strategic research and development partnerships with Bionomics Limited in Adelaide, Benitec Limited in Brisbane and Tranzyme Inc in Alabama, US.
Dr Koentgen said Ozgene was a leader in the field of GM mice and rats through the animals that it produced and the services offered to its clients.
Customers are able to track progress of certain projects online through a proprietary database system called OzMouse.
The OzMouse system allows the efficient production, analysis and customer updating of all GM mouse and rat projects, from receiving an order to product shipment, according to Dr Koentgen.
Ozgene exports its services to research institutes, universities, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the US, Europe and South-East Asia and was a finalist in the 2002 Western Australian Export Awards.
