Good man, Goodyear - 09 August 2009
09 August 2008 - www.theaustralian.com.au
Good man, Goodyear
AFTER years of frustration, tiny Melbourne-based medical research house Virax Holdings has secured approval from the South African Government to conduct clinical trials of its Australian-developed HIV vaccine.
It is more than two years since Virax went cap in hand to then managing director of BHP Billiton Chip Goodyear.
Virax needed cornerstone funding for clinical trials it wanted to run in South Africa and it thought Goodyear might be receptive.
Virax was right. Goodyear not only pledged BHP's financial support but personally rounded up nine other mining majors and big-ticket metals traders to commit to a $US6 million funding package.
Why? Well, if anyone understands the nature of the HIV problem in South Africa it is the mining companies. BHP employs about 18,000 people in South Africa and, despite a range of HIV mitigation programs, still about 14 per cent of those people have tested positive to the virus.
In the wider African context, BHP's achievement is impressive. The background level of HIV in South Africa is about 25 per cent and in some mining centres the rate of occurrence runs as high as 40 per cent.
What Virax told Goodyear about was an innovative immunotherapy it calls VIR201.
Back in 2006, mind you, VIR201 was one of several potential HIV treatments headed for trial. As things stands, it is probably the last one with clinical standing.
Goodyear's response to the Virax pitch was to deliver very personal support to the project. He committed BHP funds and wrote to a broad church of the global mining community.
Subsequently a non-profit funding organisation was established and it is now supported financially by at least nine major miners and three of BHP's biggest customers: Mitsubishi Matierals, Nippon Mining & Metals and Sumitomo Metal. A convincing man, that Chip Goodyear.
Goodyear delivered his investment angels back in September 2006. All Virax needed to do to secure the cheques was lock in formal approval from the South African Medicines Control Council for the phase I and II programs.
That was never going to be an easy task, despite the gravity of South Africa's HIV problem.
Look at it from the South African perspective and you can easily understand its bureaucratic caution. Here was a commercial tiddler from Melbourne looking to further an AIDS research program by conducting human tests on predominantly black communities in South Africa.
The main reason South Africa is the best place to run tests is, very sadly, there is a readily available cohort of HIV sufferers who have not had access to anti-retroviral therapy. That level of treatment is simply not available to many.
Formal approval finally lobbed on Thursday night and not a day too soon for Virax, which had all but given up on the project.
Now, for all the past uncertainty, Virax reckons it can move quickly to its phase I trial.