Melbourne start-up biotech company MecRx will receive $4 million from the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF)* to advance a new technology platform for accelerating drug discovery. According to the CSIRO, this is a result of its creative risk-sharing agreement with the company, and a Victorian Government Innovation Voucher.
CSIRO will assist MecRx in validating the company's technology, after it has already shared R&D costs in return for a mixture of milestone payments and shares in MecRx.
To date, it has a 14.6% equity stake in the company.
MecRx and CSIRO have also joined with the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre to develop and test a promising drug lead for inhibiting the biological target cMyc – a key driver of destructive cell mutation in many cancers.
If successful, the drug could be tested in cancer patients within a few years.