The Turnbull Government's National Innovation and Science Agenda includes $250 million over two years to help translate Australian health and medical research into commercial outcomes.
The new Biomedical Translation Fund is the first substantial investment from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
According to the Government, it will operate alongside the MRFF to expedite investments in biomedical innovations, making investments in promising discoveries and injecting funds to progress commercialisation.
“By investing in the early stages of commercialisation, we open the research pipeline from the laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside,” said Health Minister Sussan Ley.
“Researchers, clinicians, industry, governments and, especially, patients will benefit from research ideas succeeding commercially.
“Bringing new biomedical discoveries to market is complex and expensive,” she said.
“Because of this, many potentially valuable projects fail to attract the resources needed to progress them. These ‘invisible ideas’ are not developed and we never see the health or economic benefits. We need to change this – and that is why we are investing $250 million via the Biomedical Translation Fund.
“We are currently losing the benefits of Australian research and our talented researchers overseas. When Australian researchers are unable to find funding here, they take their innovations overseas. An investment by the Australian Government will fuel Australian biomedical innovation, generate revenue for Australia, and create high-value Australian jobs.
“Funding, resources and expertise are needed to ensure these research findings can be translated into real benefits for people in the form of better devices, drugs and treatments. This investment will provide the funds to improve the quality of life of Australians.”
Minister Ley said Australia was renowned for ground-breaking discoveries in health and medical research, but too often opportunities to commercialise them were lost to overseas investors.
“The opportunities are huge – the value of Australian publicly listed life-sciences companies in 2012 was $31.4 billion. And there are more than 2,000 companies based in Australia, making us the largest health and biomedical hub in the Asia Pacific.
“Australia has had some great commercialisation success stories such as CSL Limited, Resmed and Cochlear, but we have great potential to achieve so much more,” added the Minister.