AusBiotech July journal features 'manufacturing, money and medtech'


Tuesday, 08 July, 2014

The latest edition of AusBiotech’s journal, Australasian Biotechnology (July 2014, Volume 24, Number 2), features the following:

Biotechnology’s role in manufacturing of the future

  • Manufacturing has received unprecedented attention in the last five years, as Australia grapples with its desired and sustainable place in a fast-changing global economic and technology environment. 
  • While the debate has been raging, especially in respect to government support for the automotive sector, the manufacturing landscape in Australia has been structurally shifting toward its ‘natural’ advantages in advanced manufacturing.
  • Australia has a strong competitive advantage in ‘high-tech, high-cost, low-volume’ manufacturing to elaborately transform goods such as medical devices and biopharmaceuticals, and a burgeoning biotechnology and life sciences industry that is globally impressive by any comparative measure.
  • Biopharmaceuticals is one of Australia’s most innovative industries and a significant manufacturer. Currently, around 50 global research-based pharmaceutical companies and more than 400 locally owned medical biotechnology firms operate in Australia. Together, they employ in excess of 40,000 highly skilled Australians, generate nearly $4 billion in exports each year (25% more than the car industry), invest over $1 billion in research and development (R&D) and deliver medicines and vaccines that millions of Australians use every day to live longer, healthier and more productive lives.

The landscape for biotechs to access capital in the year to come

  • The need and the challenge of securing capital for Australia’s promising biotechnologies remains a major focus for life sciences companies, but the latest industry survey showed the urgency eased slightly … and then came the federal Budget 2014-15.
  • The past year has been a time of significant policy change with the change of government in late 2013 and the subsequent first Budget. The Budget was ‘bruising’ for biotechnology and has meant further uncertainty for biotech companies in need of capital.
  • However, the 2014 Industry Position Survey, which collected data from January to March 2014, showed the fundamentals are still sound and CEOs were optimistic about the future with more cash on hand.

Key presentations from AusMedtech 2014

  • This year’s AusMedtech conference, held at the Hilton on the Park, Melbourne from 1-2 April, attracted over 250 delegates from the medical technology (devices and diagnostics) sector, including more than half the delegates who were international and interstate guests.
  • Speaker highlights included keynote presentations by Mick Farrell, CEO, ResMed; David Cassak, Managing Partner, Innovation in Medtech LLC; and Dr Lisa Studdert, Head of the Market Authorisation Group at the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in the Department of Health. The journal includes a number of papers from speakers at the event.

The journal also has regular features, such as the AusBiotech Chair and CEO Report and AusBioSTOCK, an exclusive report from Baillieu Holst Stockbroking’s Joanna Hill.

The next edition will be published in October 2014, when themes will be:

  • Brains and biotech at AusBiotech 2014: the industry event of the year arrives on the Gold Coast.
  • From the farm gate to the dinner plate; an update on industry issues in agricultural and food biotechnology.

Copies of the journal (hard or e-magazine) are available by contacting Lorraine Chiroiu, Editor, Australasian Biotechnology (lchiroiu@ausbiotech.org, 03 9828 1400/0429 801 118).

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