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Poolbeg boss says ‘joined-up thinking’ needed to foster indigenous Irish pharma sector

Jeremy Skillington says that the ‘right ingredients’ exist for domestic sector to grow

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The chief executive of Irish clinical-stage drug firm Poolbeg Pharma, Jeremy Skillington, says Ireland has the ingredients to foster the growth of an indigenous pharmaceutical industry but still needs “some joined-up thinking” to achieve it.

• He was speaking as Poolbeg, which is listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and was co-founded by serial entrepreneur Cathal Friel, prepares to embark on an important patient trial of a key cancer-related treatment.

“The Government is a bit complacent, with 60,000 or 70,000 people employed by big pharma generating a lot of tax revenue,” Mr Skillington said.

“There is talent here. You have really smart people and scientists. The ingredients are there and maybe just a bit of joined-up thinking will help it succeed.”

He lived in California for 11 years and said it was there he saw how people will often gain experience in a pharma firm before branching out on their own.

“We’re on the cusp of that here,” he said. “We’ve a lot of people with a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience and wanting to start their own companies.

Let’s be more reliant on indigenous start-ups that maybe become the next big pharma

“We just need the government enthusiasm and support for that. We’ll still be reliant on the big pharma companies for quite a while, but let’s be more reliant on indigenous start-ups that maybe become the next big pharma.”

In coming weeks, Poolbeg Pharma’s trial partner will have embarked on a patient trial in the UK of its POLB 001 treatment. Thirty people will participate in the trial, with preliminary data expected to be made available next summer.

POLB 001 is designed to prevent the occurrence of Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) in patients receiving cancer immunotherapies.

Typically, more than 70pc of patients undergoing treatment with certain types of antibodies or other specific therapies are affected by CRS, meaning after receiving a treatment, they remain in a hospital or cancer clinic so they can be monitored.

However, if POLB 001 is ultimately successful in preventing CRS, such patients will no longer be at risk from the syndrome. That means they can return home, for instance, after receiving cancer treatments rather than remaining in hospital, freeing up resources and benefiting overall patient care.

“A lot of the time with these [cancer] therapies, patients are willing to accept the risk-reward – they’re willing to suffer the side effects to get benefit from the cancer treatment,” Mr Skillington said.

If we can remove the side effects, all the better; the patients can get their drugs and go home

“If we can remove the side effects, all the better; the patients can get their drugs and go home.”

POLB 001 could also be potentially used in the future for the treatment of severe influenza.

Poolbeg Pharma is also developing technology for the oral delivery of active pharmaceutical ingredients to specific areas of the gut. That would permit the controlled release of the bioactive ingredient to improve potential take-up of treatments for obesity, diabetes and other metabolic diseases.

The company recently raised gross proceeds of almost £5m (€5.7m), giving it sufficient cash to fund operations until 2027, by which time it will have accumulated a significant amount of additional data on its product pipeline.