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Health, News

Cancer research investment boost

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Featured image above: Cancer research at the Cancer Therapeutics Cooperative Research Centre has received a funding boost. Credit: CTx

The Chief Executive of the Cancer Therapeutics Cooperative Research Centre (CTx), Dr Warwick Tong, announced last week that a majority of its current partners have chosen to reinvest their share of the recent cash distribution from CTx back into the organisation.

In January 2016 CTx licensed its PRMT5 Project to MSD (known as Merck in the US and Canada) in a landmark deal and received over $14 million dollars as its share of the signature payment. Novel drugs arising from the project will be developed and commercialised by Merck. Potential future milestone payments and royalties will also be shared within the partnership.

“Our 2013 application to the Department of Industry CRC Programme outlined the intent to actively secure reinvestment of funds from any commercialisation success back into our cancer drug development activities”, said Tong. “To have this commitment from our partners is the validation and support we wanted.

“The more than seven million dollars will boost our ability to deliver new cancer drugs for adults and children”.

“CTx has made great use of its partnership network to deliver this project,” said Professor Grant McArthur Chair of the CTx Scientific Advisory Board. “The reinvestment is a very positive recognition by the partners that CTx will continue to provide benefits for patients and strengthen translational cancer research in Australia”.

This article was first published by the Cancer Therapeutics Cooperative Research Centre on 29 June 2016. Read the original article here.

To read more articles on research funding, visit:

$22.6 million research funding – A round of applications is expected to open in August for 11 newly funded Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) projects.

Australian research funding infographic – The latest OECD figures reveal how Australia’s science and research funding compares with other countries.

Innovation, Opinion

Investing in small business

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Featured image above: Charles W. Wessner is a distinguished scholar and research professor in Global Innovation Policy at Georgetown University, and director of the Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Academies.

Innovation is recognised as a key to growing and maintaining a country’s competitive position in the global economy. Australian scientists produce top-quality research and punch above their weight in terms of peer-reviewed publications; however, Australia is much less successful in creating innovative products and processes based on research investment. If we want more innovation, university and government policies need to change.

Part of this change requires learning from the successes of other nations. Successful policy changes include increased support for universities and research centres, growing funding for competitively awarded applied research, sustained support for small businesses, and a focus on partnerships among government, industry and universities in bringing research ideas to market.

The USA is the land of free-market capitalism, but it is also an active entrepreneurial state. A highly effective US government initiative, for example, is the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which has been in existence for 25 years and was recently renewed by Congress.

Instrumental in this renewal was an assessment by the National Academy of Sciences, which found the SBIR program “sound in concept and effective in operation”.

The program provides highly competitive, phased innovation awards to small businesses and start-ups to develop products that meet agency mission objectives or provide social value. The awards range from US$150,000 to more than US$1 million. The grants are often linked to the procurement process, for example in the case of military acquisition and support. In other fields, such as health and energy, grants provide a means to push good ideas to market.

SBIR has a strong track record. In recent years, it garnered 20–25% of the top 100 R&D awards for the US economy as a whole, and helped agencies like NASA address specific needs such as instruments for exploring Mars. SBIR doesn’t replace venture capital, but rather augments it by de-risking ideas to the point where private investors can step forward. Reflecting its success in the USA, SBIR has been adopted by a number of other countries.

While SBIR is a success, it is not a panacea. Effective innovation policy is multidimensional, and a supportive policy framework that encourages universities to commercialise new products and processes is required. Policies that facilitate start-ups and encourage small to medium-sized businesses are also needed.

Governments need to invest in places where researchers and companies can meet, learn, cooperate and grow. For example, science and technology parks near universities, incubators, accelerator programs, and innovation awards that facilitate collaboration.

Adopting pro-innovation policies does not guarantee instant success – but not adopting them guarantees long-term stagnation.

– Charles W. Wessner

Innovation, News

Kickstarting the innovation culture

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On Monday 7 December, in his first major policy announcement since becoming Prime Minister in September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull unveiled an innovation package to drive an “ideas boom” in Australia.

Speaking at CSIRO in Canberra, Turnbull and Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne announced $1 billion in government spending over four years. The funds, says Turnbull, will kickstart an innovation culture in Australia.

“This statement is an absolutely critical part of securing our prosperity. The big shift is cultural – if we can inspire people to be innovative, the opportunities are boundless,” says Turnbull.

The plan outlines 25 measures across four key areas: culture and capital; embracing risk; incentivising early-stage investment in startups; and addressing governance issues through the establishment of two new bodies to oversee the plan: the Innovation and Science Sub-Committee of Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister, and newly established independent advisory board, Innovation and Science Australia.

These, according to Pyne, will “put science and innovation at the heart of government policy”.

“I wrote a list of expectations before I went in and got to tick everyone of them,” says Dr Tony Peacock, Chief Executive of the Corporate Research Centres Association (CRCA). “Now startups will be much better placed to raise their own funds,” he says.

According to Peacock, by changing the insolvency laws, such as reducing the default bankruptcy period from three years to one, and making it easier for startups to gain access to capital, “the government has put the ball back in the innovator’s court”.

The biomedical and biotechnology industries have also welcomed the announcement.

“We are keen to see this positive policy transformed into action that makes a difference to Australia’s ability to commercialise and benefit from our world-class research and development,” says Dr Anna Lavelle, CEO of biotechnology organisation AusBiotech.

The plan represents a major step forward for science innovation in Australia, according to Dr Peter French, CEO and managing director of biopharmaceuticals company Benitec Biopharma, and “is the most exciting and refreshing statement of vision for Australia that I have seen from our politicians”.

French, named this month one of Australia’s “Innovators of Influence” by the Australian Science Innovation Forum, says that ”rewarding academics for working with industry is well intentioned, but without safeguards, could end up being counter productive to Australian innovation”.

The package includes a $100 million boost to the CSIRO budget, reversing the $110 million cut under the Abbot Government last year. The Government will also co-invest with the private sector in the $200 million CSIRO Innovation Fund for new spin-out and startup companies and services created by research institutions. Biomedical research will also benefit from a $250 million Biomedical Translation Fund.

These funds will support investment in spin-off and startups, to develop and commercialise promising products and services from Australia’s research community.

Science research will receive an injection of funding, with $520 million for the Australian Synchrotron facility and $294 million for the Square Kilometre Array over the next decade. The National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) will also receive $1.5 billion to deliver world-class research facilities to Australian researchers in Australia and abroad.

The package also includes a $36 million Global Innovation Strategy to support collaboration between Australian researchers and businesses with their international counterparts. Landing pads for Australian startups and entrepreneurs will be established in Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley and three other key locations around the globe.

There will also be a $99 million investment in programs to improve digital literacy and skills in STEM amongst young Australians. And $13 million will be made available to increase opportunities for women working in research and STEM industries and start-ups.

“Innovation and Science are two sides of the same coin, and this plan will bring them both together: driving jobs, growth and investment and igniting a national ‘can-do’ attitude,” says Pyne.

– Carl Williams