News

Venomtech is pleased to share with you our success in finding new venom peptides that kill bacteria in potentially novel ways. These are all found in our antibacterial T-VDA. This is currently a leading story on Sky News blueprint-to-tackle-scourge-of-drug-resistance showing a small snap shot of what we do and why it's important.

We are fighting hard to bring these important tools needed to the people that need them to help mitigate the perceived threat of the antibiotic apocalypse.

The tools you need to find novel mechanisms to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria are right here with a full hit to lead support service to get them to the patient ASAP.

Contact us for more information.

We are excited to announce we are six years old. During those six years we have moved through three locations each time getting bigger and better. Now located in the amazing Discovery Park Community. We have shipped venoms to customers far and wide (USA, Europe, India and Australia). But most importantly we have facilitated work in a wide range of drug discovery programmes including new antibiotics, GPCR ligands, Pain therapeutics and Cancer biology. We have also gained a deep understanding of the venoms and the venomous animals (more publications to come). Looking forward we expect to further grow into the cosmetics and personal care fields as well as our global reach in pharmaceutical research.

Australia has many venomous animals that are a significant danger to humans. In the battle to save human life from unfortunate encounters with venomous animals, specific antivenom is needed. In order to do this, venom must be collected from the animals responsible and depending on the species and size this can be a very difficult process. The Syndney Funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus) is one such animal. The unique thing with A. robustus is that the venom in the mature male spider contains a toxin not found in the females, Delta Atracotoxin-Ar1. This toxin potently blocks primate voltage gated sodium channels with a much greater afinity than to other mamalian channels, hence the danger to humans. Therefore for successful antivenom production the mature males must be collected annually as they only have a short life once matured. Thus the discovery of the largest male A. robustus is a significant boost to the antivenom project because larger spiders have larger venom glands.

See BBC global news coverage here video

Our MD Steve has helped journalists at The Sun newspaper, understand the impact venomous animals have had in curing human disease. Venoms represent a growing source of new and highly profitable medications. Fifteen extremely successful drugs (including several blockbusters worth >$1bn) were developed based on venoms to treat a variety of illnesses including thrombosis, diabetes and hypertension as well as pain: there are a further seven currently in clinical trials. As a whole, venoms are both proven and powerful and yet still represent a vastly untapped source of innovative drugs.

This article highlights a few examples such as Captopril, Chlorotoxin, Prialt and ACTX-6.

Importantly there is much more to discover from venoms and Venomtech is here to help match venom tools to the drug discovery program.