Australia’s life sciences sector is set for a stronger, more coordinated innovation pipeline following a new national partnership between industry body AusBiotech and biomedical venture creator Proto Axiom.
The two organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding designed to better connect researchers, founders, investors and industry, with the goal of smoothing the path from scientific discovery to commercial success.
Rather than treating pitching, industry engagement and capital raising as separate steps, the collaboration seeks to align them into a clearer national journey for emerging companies.
At the centre of the agreement is a shared calendar of investor-focused programs running throughout 2026. The first milestone will be the Challenger Pitch for Health in March, a national competition led by Proto Axiom in partnership with the St Vincent’s Curran Foundation. The event will award $500,000 in non-dilutive grants to promising researcher-founded ventures and bring together investors, policymakers and industry leaders to discuss scaling growth capital for deep technology.
The partnership will extend beyond a single event. Proto Axiom will serve as a pipeline partner to AusBiotech’s Early Stage Innovation Forum sessions held alongside major national conferences, giving young companies greater visibility among investors and commercial partners. In turn, AusBiotech will support Challenger Pitch for Health as an industry partner. A new joint initiative planned for August will initially focus on translational innovation in women’s health, an area both organisations see as underfunded yet strategically important.
AusBiotech CEO Rebekah Cassidy said the collaboration reflects a broader national effort to strengthen investment pathways and improve how Australian life sciences companies engage with capital. By aligning programs and expertise, she said, the aim is to help companies move more confidently from research excellence to global scale.
Proto Axiom CEO Anthony Liveris framed the partnership as a recognition that founders experience the innovation ecosystem as a continuous journey rather than a series of disconnected stages. He noted that bringing under-served research areas, particularly women’s health, into the spotlight could help shape Australia’s future innovation agenda.
The collaboration also complements AusBiotech’s recently launched Investor Readiness Panel, an expert initiative intended to better prepare founders for funding and improve the quality of investor engagement across the sector. Together, these efforts signal a coordinated push to strengthen Australia’s sovereign biotech capability and ensure promising discoveries have a clearer route to market.