Leader of the pharmaceutical pack

Thomas Ko likens being a Monash University alumnus to belonging to a wolf pack – a worldwide fraternity of achievers and influencers, all indelibly marked by a quintessentially Australian ‘can-do’ attitude.

As a recognised global figure in pharmaceutical sciences, Ko is well-known to the world’s leading ‘pharma’ companies and research institutes, where he frequently encounters Monash alumni. He puts this far-reaching presence down to the ethos of the Monash education, which he describes as “instilling in students the confidence and freedom to think innovatively”.

He believes this fosters Australians’ natural inclination to be inventive. “We’re raised to think nothing is impossible. From farmers to engineers to scientists, if we need something and it’s not there, we make it. If there’s a challenge, we roll up the sleeves and take it on. It should be no surprise to anyone that the Monash Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is ranked in the top three in the world because of this culture of innovation,” he says.

While Ko was born in Hong Kong and today lives in Beijing, he considers himself “an Aussie” because of the life-changing experiences he had after leaving home at the age of 15 to, in his own words, “grow up”.  

Thomas Ko likens being a Monash University alumnus to belonging to a wolf pack – a worldwide fraternity of achievers and influencers, all indelibly marked by a quintessentially Australian ‘can-do’ attitude.

Ko came from an eminent pharmaceutical family, which may have been making life too comfortable. One day a teacher took him aside and called him a spoiled brat who needed to get some independence. Chastened, he went home and opened an atlas. “There was Australia, but the map didn’t show Tasmania. I thought Melbourne was as far as I could go, and so that’s where I headed.”

Ko arrived knowing no one, found board with a Dutch family and enrolled at Essendon High School. “I was one of only three Asian students and I couldn’t speak English. I had to grow up fast … but I thrived. The teachers were fantastic. After every lesson they would sit with me and go through the lessons again until I understood and until my English improved.”

It was a profound experience, and returning to gaze at his old school has become a ritual on his annual visits to Melbourne. Following secondary school, Ko was accepted into the Victorian College of Pharmacy (which became a Monash faculty in 1990) and again he thrived – grasping with idiosyncratic ebullience the academic. “To study at the college was very prestigious,” he recalls. “And it was a process of attrition. The first-year intake of 250 was cut to 85 by the third year, and you knew you had to be in that final cohort to graduate.”

Ko’s passion was physical chemistry and pharmaceutics – the world of formulations and drug development – perhaps not surprising, given his father and grandfather were pharmaceutical manufacturers, and he had grown up surrounded by chemistry glassware and pill presses.

Lure of research

On graduating he entered the Victorian hospital system and was the first male pharmacist appointed to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. Ultimately, however, the lure of research and drug development pulled him away. His interest in immunotherapy, drug formulations and – in particular – drug delivery technologies became his focus and, as global patents began accruing, a highly successful business began to build. He also maintained a close working relationship with the Monash faculty.

His first major achievement was the development of a patented process for stabilising biological molecules, including peptides and proteins. The inherent instability of peptides and proteins limits their manufacture and supply. They have a short shelf life and need refrigeration.

Ko adapted this technology to sublingual (under the tongue) delivery of the anti-viral protein interferon for treating chronic hepatitis B and C. The conventional use of interferon to treat hepatitis is based on frequent injections for at least 12 months, and Ko’s formulation provided an alternative.

He had discovered that – unlike injections that come with debilitating flu-like side effects due to their large systemic dose – low-dose sublingual interferon was equally effective, given the sublingual route enables a highly effective delivery to the immune system. 

He’s repeatedly shown that stepping into the unknown can be the most important step anyone can take.

Ko started work on developing a low-dose sublingual interferon tablet in the 1980s and had a commercial product by 1994. The tablet found a ready market for treatment of hepatitis B and C in China, and in 2000 he relocated his Australian company to Hong Kong and listed it on the HK stock exchange. He also began developing other products, including electrolyte-based sports drinks, leading to a commission from the Chinese government in 2008 to provide an energy drink to mountaineers relaying the Olympic torch up Mount Everest.

But before that “bit of fun”, as he described his Olympics role, Ko had experienced another life-changing moment. In 2004, his father was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, and Ko sold his company stake to spend time with him.  

From professional to personal

He recalls sitting late into the night as father and son talked about life and medicine, and one day the subject turned to natural ways to boost the immune system. Ko was wondering if a traditional Chinese medicine, beta-1,3-glucan – an immune-moderating agent derived from the cell wall of baker’s yeast and some medicinal mushrooms – would be more effective sublingually. He suggested to his father it might even help him fight his cancer. “Might,” Ko emphasised, but his father took up the challenge. The cancer abated and he lived heartily for another six years, dying at the ripe old age of 90 from unrelated causes.

The significance of this private father-son experiment is that it made Ko think more about the role of immunotherapy in cancer treatment. He was also spurred on by his father reminding him that “everyone has a father, mother, sister or brother …”.  

The comment enticed Ko from his semi-retirement and, with two Swiss partners, he founded a new company, BioLingus GmbH, to develop sublingual tablets for interleukin 2 (IL-2) – a powerful immunotherapy drug that currently requires injection.

The company’s animal studies have shown low-dose sublingual IL-2 is highly effective against a range of cancers, which Ko speculates is due to low-dose IL-2 helping to reduce the inflammation that contributes to cancers developing. The company now holds international patents for low-dose sublingual IL-2 as an anti-inflammatory agent.

Ko feels regulatory approvals and commercialisation of his sublingual diabetes products and IL-2 could be his greatest achievement … but then he adds he has so much more to investigate.

From the day he opened that atlas, he’s repeatedly shown that stepping into the unknown can be the most important step anyone can take. As a Monash alumnus, he’d be very happy for this example to be his legacy.