Chemeq
Australian pharmaceutical company

Chemeq was a publicly listed company which was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on 25 August 1998. Chemeq was founded by Dr Graham Melrose in 1989 after he developed a new type of antimicrobial polymer. This polymer can replace antibiotics in the control of disease in commercial animal populations. Its only commercial plant is located in the seaside town of Rockingham, Western Australia.
Chemeq was sued in the Supreme Court of Western Australia by investors claiming that the company had breached the terms of the investment contract. The court found against the company and ordered it to repay the $60 million it sought. Liquidators were called in when Chemeq's appeal against the decision was dismissed.
Its intellectual Property (patents, know how and trade secrets) has been folded into a subsidiary called Chemeq Technology Pty Ltd (CTPL). CTPL was launched on 15 March 2008 with the objective of developing commercial collaborations and to allow exploitation of the IP through exclusive licenses in a number of areas; including animal health, human health and industrial uses.
Investigation
The Administrators, KordaMentha, in a report dated 5 December 2007, indicated that investigations into potential offences under section 438D of the Corporations Act 2001 had identified four (4) areas where further investigation were warranted.
The public source identifies “Chemeq” as australian pharmaceutical company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Chemeq, Australian and pharmaceutical.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5090362. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 1989, 2008 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chemeq” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.