Australia risks falling behind its global peers in life sciences unless the Federal Government adopts a coordinated, whole-of-government approach to the sector, according to a new pre-Budget submission from AusBiotech.
The industry body has renewed calls for decisive policy action, warning that fragmented oversight and underinvestment are undermining Australia’s ability to capture the full economic, health, and sovereign capability benefits of its rapidly growing life sciences ecosystem.
In its 2026–27 pre-Budget submission, AusBiotech argues that while Australia has world-class health and medical research and a strong pipeline of biotechnology, medical technology, and digital health companies, policy settings have failed to keep pace with international competitors.
Many peer nations, including the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Denmark, and South Korea, have already implemented national life sciences strategies supported by cross-portfolio coordination and formal government–industry councils. Australia, by contrast, continues to manage the sector across at least nine government portfolios without a unifying framework.
At the centre of AusBiotech’s proposal is the creation of Australia’s first National Life Sciences Strategy, designed to align policy priorities, remove duplication, and position the sector as a core driver of productivity, health security, and economic resilience. Complementing this, the organisation is calling for the establishment of a whole-of-government Life Sciences Council to bring industry and government together to guide investment, address systemic barriers, and ensure policy coherence across the health, industry, defence, and trade portfolios.
AusBiotech has also urged the government to formally recognise life sciences as a priority under the Future Made in Australia Act. Such recognition, it argues, would unlock stronger cross-portfolio coordination and ensure the sector is treated as strategically important to national security and sovereign capability, particularly in a period of heightened geopolitical uncertainty and global competition for innovation.
Beyond structural reform, the submission outlines a series of targeted measures to accelerate commercialisation and onshore scale-up. These include reforming the Research and Development Tax Incentive to remove the upper threshold and extend support further down the innovation pipeline, introducing a commercialisation incentive such as a patent box, creating priority regulatory and procurement pathways for Australian innovation, and reducing barriers to superannuation fund investment in life sciences.
AusBiotech Chief Executive Officer Rebekah Cassidy said the sector is at a critical inflection point. While Australian life sciences companies are increasingly attractive on the global stage, the absence of coordinated domestic policy risks pushing innovation offshore at precisely the moment when sovereign capability matters most. Without whole-of-government action, she warned, Australia may continue to lose ground to countries that have already identified life sciences as a cornerstone of economic growth and national resilience.
The submission also highlights the importance of international collaboration, including a proposed Australia–UK BioBridge, developed with MTPConnect, to fast-track cross-border research, commercialisation, and trade. In parallel, AusBiotech and several industry partners have called for continued Federal funding to support non-cost-recoverable public good services provided by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which are particularly critical for start-ups and small to medium enterprises developing emerging technologies.