"Our first drug, RetroMAD1 is in its final preclinical phases. Toxicology results have been very promising and an extremely high therapeutic index will be forthcoming. Once our final rodent and primate toxicology is done along with pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies, we will be moving towards phase I trials in humans probably in 2013," says Mr Ung Eng Huan.

Funding is one of the challenges that BioValence is facing. With the possible availability of some good sponsorship for its potentially aggressive high-output drug discovery pipeline, it aims to deliver two to five new drugs every year. The Malaysian government, through the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, has been supportive in the early up-scale technology trials and has granted $450,000 through TechnoFund Grant.

BioValence has another four to eight protein drugs in the pipeline and the company expects that at least two of them will be as good as RetroMAD1. These are already undergoing in vitro validations and a couple of them will enter animal trial stage in 2012.