Australia has cemented its role in becoming a major player in the next generation of medicines with the launch of Ternarx – a globally competitive biotechnology company dedicated to finding new treatments for hard-to-treat cancers. The WEHI spinout is the first of its kind in Australia dedicated to developing targeted protein degrader medicines and technology, a powerful new tool for destroying disease-causing proteins that cannot be targeted by conventional drugs. Ternarx is backed by $15 million in funding from the Australian Medical Research Future Fund's (MRFF) Frontier Health and Medical Research initiative and by support from Melbourne-based medical research institute WEHI.
The company has been officially launched by the Australian Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler. While scientists have uncovered many of the drivers of cancer, about 80% of all disease-causing proteins have been considered "undruggable". New biotechnology company, Ternarx, aims at changing this statistic through the development of targeted protein degrader (TPD) technology, which is designed to destroy these "undruggable" proteins.
Unlike conventional drugs that only inhibit the activity of proteins, TPDs can target and destroy disease-causing proteins, completely removing the proteins from the cancer. Ternarx is the first company of its kind in Australia, focusing on the development of TPD medicines and technology. In 2023, the MRFF's Frontier Health and Medical Research initiative award.