Federal Liberal MP Jane Prentice has addressed parliament about the need for Australia to improve its performance when it comes to the translation of medical research.
Mrs Prentice, who represents the Brisbane-based seat of Ryan, which is home to many of the State's largest medical research institutes, said she was "truly fortunate to represent an electorate that contains some of the most brilliant medical researchers in our country."
According to Mrs Prentice, Australia "punches above its weight" when it comes to basic research. "With just 0.3 per cent of the world's population, we manage to produce three per cent of the world's research."
However, she lamented Australia's performance when it comes to translation.
"The majority of great ideas simply fall by the wayside. Some do not progress for perfectly valid reasons such as failed clinical trials. But for many more, development slows to a halt as victims of a phase of development, some researchers have darkly termed the 'valley of death'.
"The more technical term for this phrase of drug development is translational medical research. Turning a good idea into a product is a multistage process. Research must proceed through many time-consuming stages before research reaches market, including several stages of clinical trials. It is not uncommon for the entire process to take a decade or more.
"This is a costly process," she said, going on to argue that the issue in Australia is compounded by Australia's small population, which means a smaller pool of patients for clinical trials, and an underdeveloped venture capital market.
"Again, this is partly due to a smaller population meaning a smaller funding market. But it is also fair to say that there is a general lack of appetite among institutional investors to invest in high-risk — but high-reward — ventures such as medical advances," said Mrs Prentice.
"It is clear is that there is a funding gap between laboratory research and the market," she said. "In Australia this gap means that we are losing some of our best and brightest researchers, along with their intellectual property and lifesaving advances, to other countries. Australia is missing out on new home-grown, job-creating, knowledge-based industries. And in some cases, the world is missing out on what would otherwise be the next great medical advances because researchers simply give up on some projects altogether due to a lack of funding."
Mr Prentice welcomed the recent announcement from Brandon Capital Partners that it had raised $200 million for a venture capital fund to invest in small life science companies.
However, she also backed calls from Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, for a cultural shift in research when it comes to commercialisation, and welcomed recent moves from the National Health and Medical Research Council to move beyond its "traditional support for pure research and is now also focusing on translational research."
She continued, "For a nation that prides itself on the quality of our researchers and our pure research we can do a lot better in supporting our researchers to bring their ideas to market. While governments of all persuasions at state and federal level have begun to recognise this shortfall and are taking steps to remedy it, the nature of the industry means that achieving results will require sustained commitment from government over many years."