$100,000 win for cataract drug

The Adelaide-based innovators behind commercialising a world-first drug to delay cataracts from forming, and slow their growth, have won Australia's richest business plan competition.

The $100,000 University of Queensland (UQ) Business School's Enterprize competition was won last month by Calpain Therapeutics, a company co-founded by Dr Tim Lovell and University of Adelaide Chemistry Professor Andrew Abell.

As reported in the October 2011 issue of Adelaidean ("New drug offers hope against cataracts"), Calpain Therapeutics is pioneering a novel drug with application to the eye health of people around the world.

Dr Lovell said the Calpain Therapeutics team was "thrilled to have won such a prestigious competition as Enterprize" - especially on what was World Sight Day, a global initiative to raise public awareness of blindness and vision impairment as major public health issues.

For more details about Calpain Therapeutics and the drug, see the original story in the Adelaidean online at: http://j.mp/adelaidean48863