June 9, 2011

 

New Zealand's Quantec gets boost for non-antibiotic dairy treatment

 

 

Hamilton company Quantec has received a US$500,000 premium to further develop its unique non-antibiotic treatment for bovine mastitis.

 

The cash injection - half from Waikato-based venture capital fund Central Capital Investments, half from the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund - will be spent on further testing of the mastitis treatment, and on boosting sales of Quantec’s other products - breath mints and chewing gum, and a soothing cream for skin conditions such as acne - which will be on sale in the US and China this month.

 

Quantec co-founder Dr Rod Claycomb says the Asian market is more open to natural products, while US customers are more demanding, and want as many independent clinical trials as possible.

 

New to the idea of making sales pitches, and with a science and engineering background, he says he was forced to "de-science" his language and put everything into terms that business investors would understand. So, to explain what Quantec does, he says: "We pull [the product] out of the milk, isolate it and turn it into a freeze dried ingredient." 

Eventually, Hamilton venture capitalist Central Capital Investments (CCI), which had previously turned him down, called Claycomb back for a re-pitch, and the deal went ahead.

 

Rory MacGillycuddy, spokesman for the NZVIF seed-funding partner Angel Link, says Claycomb's and co-founder Dr Judy Bragger's tenacity and intensity sold the idea to CCI, as did the fact that the technology could address two markets: human health and animal health.

 

Quantec is a spin-off of dairy equipment firm DEC International, one of the world's first companies to invest in "online" or "at cow" milk sensors, which measure various components - such as fat, protein and progesterone-as the milk flows from the cow. This information helps farmers spot certain diseases, or deficiencies in the milk, and saves them from manually taking samples and waiting for lab tests.

 

As well as the potential to treat bovine mastitis, the pair discovered it was also an effective ingredient in human health products.

 

Now based in the Waikato Innovation Park, Quantec outsources making of the finished human health product that goes into lozenges, creams and gum. It licenses use of the animal health ingredient.

 

Claycomb says the natural products market is huge, and having a milk-derived product differentiates Quantec from the competitors. It does, however, mean vegans and people allergic to dairy can't use the products.

 

"But we rely on the fact that New Zealand has a great image in the world of dairy. The fact we're from New Zealand gets us a seat at the table quite quickly,"Claycomb added.

 

Angel Link's MacGillycuddy says a high level of joint ventures between regional angel investment groups is helping to give small companies the New Zealand Inc approach to get them off the ground.