WAIMR Finalist Innovator of the Year

November 4th, 2010 - Media Statement

Dimerix Bioscience Pty Ltd, a spin-out company of the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR), was a finalist in the 2010 Western Australian Innovator of the Year awards.

Dimerix Bioscience is currently undertaking a pre-clinical product development program seeking to commercialise a novel treatment for diabetic nephropathy, which is a major cause of kidney failure. Of all the biotechnology applicants, only Dimerix reached the finals of this prestigious award.

Commerce and Science and Innovation Minister Bill Marmion awarded Osborne Park company AMC the overall winner of the Mitsubishi Corporation WA Innovator of the Year Award.

AMC's innovative Solids Control Unit (SCU) can bore or drill holes in surface and underground drilling operations without the need for digging conventional mud pits - reducing the amount of water needed and eliminating any environmental impacts.

At the Awards Luncheon held today at the Burswood Entertainment Complex Associate Professor Kevin Pfleger, Dimerix's Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Molecular Endocrinology at WAIMR, said, "I'm very proud of what Dimerix and my team at WAIMR have achieved and we are continuing to pursue the exciting opportunities presented by G Protein-Coupled Receptors or GPCR's in helping treat disease, as they are the targets of about half of all medications people take.

"Research into GPCR's has taken exciting new directions in recent times and the work we are doing here in WA is at the very cutting edge of where this field is going," he said.

Dimerix's CEO, Tim Grogan, said Dimerix is delighted to receive this recognition that we have developed an outstanding innovative technology that clearly demonstrates an economic and social benefit to Western Australia. I would like to thank our investors, staff and all our supporters for their vision, leadership and passion - this has enabled us to get to this point today."

The new disease treatment opportunity was identified through the use of Dimerix's patented G Protein-Coupled Receptor assay technology. Dimerix studies the activity of a drug compound when human drug targets act in complexes, rather than as isolated units. The company's technology enables the discovery of new therapies, to explain previously unexplainable drug side effects and provide drug profiling services to pharmaceutical companies and researchers world-wide.

A/Professor Pfleger, along with colleagues in his laboratory, invented a novel way of studying 'G protein coupled receptors' - a family of 'receptors' that mediate communication with other cells - using the natural bioluminescent and fluorescent properties of proteins found in sea pansies and jellyfish.

In 2009, A/Professor Pfleger was named WA's Young Scientist of the Year.

For more information please contact:

Carolyn Monaghan
Communications Manager
Mobile: 0448 021 932 (media enquiries only)
Office: (08) 9224 0377
Email: carolyn.monaghan@waimr.uwa.edu.au

Tim Grogan
CEO, Dimerix Bioscience Pty Ltd
Mobile: 0438 655 452
Website: www.dimerix.com