The MTPConnect Podcast (MTPConnect)

For our first episode of 2022, we look into a new partnership between Perth-based oligonucleotides manufacturer SynGenis and Sydney-based diagnostic company SpeeDx.  WA start-up SynGenis is the brainchild of Professor Rakesh Veedu, a world-renowned oligonucleotide chemical biologist. Sydney-based SpeeDx, led by CEO Colin Denver, is a privately owned company spun out of Johnson and Johnson that develops PCR testing solutions for  infectious diseases including COVID-19. In the wake of the pandemic, SpeeDx faced a constrained supply of oligonucleotides which are a critical component of their diagnostic kits. MTPConnect brokered SpeeDx an introduction to SynGenis and the rest is history in the making! 

Healthtech start-up Health Horizon has developed a unique platform to track development of Australian health innovations. Their project was supported through the MTPConnect Project Fund Program. Co-Founder Mathew McGann joins the MTPConnect Podcast with Director Major Projects, Elizabeth Stares, to tell us more about the platform and how consumers have come to appreciate it.

MTPConnect is participating in AusBiotech's Australian delegation to Hong Kong and Shanghai for the third Asian Investment Series. Our CEO Dr Dan Grant was on the ground in Hong Kong to discuss the importance of building relationships with Chinese companies and investors, the burgeoning potential of Asian markets and the potential for foreign direct investment into Australia's MTP sector.  

We get an update on the development of Australia’s world-first Bionic Eye System. Similar to Cochlear’s bionic ear, it involves a visual implant to give functional vision to people who’ve lost their sight due to the genetic condition, Retinitis Pigmentosa.  

The consortium behind this innovation, which has just been granted a Breakthrough Device designation from the US FDA, includes Bionic Vision Technologies, the Centre for Eye Research Australia, the Bionics Institute, CSIRO’s Data61 and the University of Melbourne.

Dr Ash Attia, the CEO of Bionic Vision Technologies and Associate Professor Penelope Allen, a Principal Investigator at the Centre for Eye Research Australia join the podcast to discuss the importance of the bionic eye breakthrough.

MTPConnect co-hosts are Caroline Duell and Dr Gerard Gibbs, Senior Director of our BioMedTech Horizons program which is providing $1 million of MRFF funding to support this project. 

The Clinical Translation and Commercialisation - Medtech (CTCM) program, delivered by MTPConnect, is offered under the 2020 Early Stage Translation and Commercialisation Support Grant of the Medical Research Future Fund's Medical Research Commercialisation Initiative. The $19.75 million CTCM program is targeting Australian small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and aims to boost commercialisation of home-grown medical devices.

The CTCM program can provide between $250,000 and $1.5 million to SMEs to support early clinical development of medical devices with commercial potential. The first funding round of our CTCM program is  open for applications until 11 March 2022. If you missed the Information Session webinar, listen to it here to see if your company is eligible for funding support. 

Hear from MTPConnect's Dr Duncan Macinnis, MTAA's Ian Burgess, MDPP's Dr Andrew Milligan and Cicada Innovation's Dr Dharmica Mistry on applying for funds to develop medical devices.

Join MTPConnect for an access-all-areas tour of the St Vincent’s Hospital BioFab3D lab in Melbourne. Centre Manager Cathal O’Connell is our guide as we explore the BioFab3d@ACMD and BioPen projects, both supported by MTPConnect.

The show takes a look at how we can take more great Australian science from the lab bench into the boardroom. And create companies, jobs and products. Joining the podcast is Misha Schubert, Chief Executive Officer at Science & Technology Australia and Professor Mark Hutchinson, the new President at Science & Technology Australia. Science & Technology Australia (STA) is Australia’s peak body in science and technology - representing more than 80,000 scientists and technologists. Professor Hutchinson is an entrepreneur, innovator and neuroscientist at the ARC Centre for Excellence in Nanoscale Biophotonics based at the University of Adelaide who recently made an address to the National Press Club on this topic, during STA's Science meets Parliament event (supported by MTPConnect).

In the first face-to-face podcast interview since January 2020, we speak with Dr Mat McGann, co-founder and CEO of Health Horizon, a health innovation tracking and discovery platform - making it easy to follow the progress of medical innovations around the world. MTPConnect supported Health Horizon's development through the Growth Centre Project Fund in 2017. Co-hosts Caroline Duell and Elizabeth Stares find out about the company’s commercialisation journey in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic - with 4,000 users tracking 6,000 innovation activities around the world.  Check it out at www.thehealthhorizon.com

The podcast was recorded in Canberra where MTPConnect was supporting Science and Technology Australia’s Science Meets Parliament event and the National Press Club Address by Professor Mark Hutchinson.

For medtech, pharma and digital health innovators, cracking the US market can make all the difference for a business venture. 

It’s equally parts lucrative and challenging.

We invited Frank Jaskulke, VP Intelligence at the Medical Alley Association in Minnesota, and our very own GM Stakeholder Engagement Dr Alfredo Martinez-Coll into the MTPConnect podcast studio to break down the do's and dont's of a US market entry strategy.

We speak to Robert Yearsley, CEO and co-founder of ARIA Research, a company developing a new medical device - a non-surgical and non-invasive Electronic Vision Aid in the form of a pair of glasses - which enables blind and vision-impaired people to see through sound. 

ARIA has been developed in collaboration with University of Sydney, University of Technology Sydney, Blind Citizens Australia and World Access for the Blind Australia. MTPConnect is supporting ARIA's research to develop a prototype of the glasses for clinical trials through the BioMedtech Horizons program. 

Co-hosts Caroline Duell and Dr Gerard Gibbs check in with Robert on ARIA’s progress towards clinical trials and find out why the device could be a game changer for 338 million people worldwide who live with visual impairment. Check out ARIA’s website: https://ariaresearch.com.au/

Is your startup on a mission to address a major public health challenge? Do you need the know-how, guidance and connections to get investment-ready and rapidly grow? 

MTPConnect co-hosts Caroline Duell and Dr Duncan Macinnis, Director Stakeholder Engagement for NSW and ACT, look into the unique Health 10X Accelerator delivered by the George Institute of Global Health and UNSW Founders, which is supported by our REDI initiative. Dina Titkova, the Health 10x program Manager at UNSW Founders, explains how and why companies should apply for the 2022 program by 15 May 2022.

And we meet Sam van Bohemen, co-founder and CEO at Nuroflux, a Sydney-based start- up developing a portable, digital device for continuous monitoring of brain activity to revolutionise stroke patient care. Nuroflux took part in Health 10X, and is about to kick off their pre-seed raise to fund the development of their clinical program for device registration.
https://nuroflux.com/

Applications close 15 May 2022.  For more information about Health 10x Accelerator program and to apply: https://unswfounders.com/health10x-accelerator

How does Australia get better at commercialising its world-class research? QUT Executive Director Professor Lyn Griffiths leads the Bridge and BridgeTech programs which help mid-career entrepreneurs and scientists with practical skills on pharmaceutical and medical technology commercialisation. She came into the MTPConnect podcast studio to chat about strategies for enhancing the commercialisation pathway. 

Around the world, approximately 16,500 people die from sudden cardiac arrest every day due to delayed access to a defibrillator.

We speak with Donovan Casey, co-founder, CEO and Executive chairman of Rapid Response Revival, a Sydney based medical technology startup hoping to improve these odds of survival by developing CellAED - a life-saving portable defibrillator for use in homes, workplaces and community spaces.  

Co-hosts Caroline Duell and Dr Duncan Macinnis find out about the ten-year story behind Rapid Response Revival, the challenges of manufacturing medtech in the COVID era and how the product’s registration in Europe and other markets around the world is a promising step. https://rapidresponserevival.com/

The last few years have been dominated by the global fight against COVID-19 and research efforts continue in search of new treatments and vaccines to save lives.

Melbourne-based Dimerix Bioscience is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company investigating a new treatment for respiratory complications as a result of COVID 19 – which was selected for inclusion in the global WHO-endorsed clinical study REMAP-CAP investigating community-acquired pneumonia.

Through MTPConnect’s Biomedical Translation Bridge (BTB) Program, Dimerix was awarded $1 million in MRFF-funding for this COVID-19 related project. 

MTPConnect host Caroline Duell catches up with Dr Robert Shepherd, Research & Development Director at Dimerix Bioscience to find out more about this potential new treatment, the benefits and challenges of being part of a unique adaptive clinical trial program and how they managed to manufacture doses for the trial during the pandemic. https://dimerix.com/

Uniquest is a Venture Partner in the BTB Program, and Cecile Francis, Uniquest’s BTB Program Project Manager joins the discussion.  https://uniquest.com.au/

In Melbourne for the official launch of their Victorian office, the Medical Device Partnering Program’s Director Professor Karen Reynolds and newly appointed Regional Director for Victoria Professor Sally McArthur stopped by the MTPConnect Podcast Studio to discuss all things partnering, trends in medical devices and what they hope their expansion into Victoria will hold.

As the world’s largest Biotech convention, BIO 2022, gets underway in San Diego California after a 2 year hiatus due to pandemic restrictions, MTPConnect’s team is on the ground promoting Australian companies at the Australian Pavilion (led by AusBiotech) and attending various events and meetings. In this pacey compilation, MTPConnect CEO Stuart Dignam catches up with the Hon. Stephen Dawson MLC, WA’s Minister for Innovation, ICT and Medical Research on the WA Mission to the US.  Stuart talks with ARIA Research CEO and Co-founder Robert Yearsley about the opportunities for connecting at BIO 2022 for their medtech venture. Argenica Therapeutics MD and CEO Dr Liz Dallimore from WA highlights opportunities to meet investors and potential partners as the company moves its novel drug candidate, a neuroprotective therapeutic, towards commercialisation. Distinguished Professor Lyn Griffiths from QUT and Director of the Bridge Program, is in San Diego with nine Australian pitch winners from the Bridge Program (which equips researchers and entrepreneurs with the knowledge, skills and networks needed to commercialise new pharmaceuticals) who are visiting multinational pharma companies. And finally, Stuart wraps up with a final word from Australia’s Ambassador to the USA, Hon. Arthur Sinodinos AO, about Australia being open for business and in the sights of US industry.

Heart attack caused by rupture of unstable plaque in the coronary arteries is the number one cause of death worldwide. 

Melbourne-based medtech company Nirtek, is using laser technology discovered at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, to develop the first intra-coronary guidewire device for the detection of unstable plaque to prevent heart attacks and save lives. Nirtek’s device has been awarded funding through MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator program for Diabetes & Cardiovascular Disease, made possible by the Medical Research Future Fund.

MTPConnect hosts Caroline Duell and Lauren Kelly, Senior Director of the TTRA Program are joined by Nirtek’s CEO Matthew Hoskin, who shares the challenges of their medtech journey as the company prepares for a capital raise and works towards creating a prototype for clinical trials. Matthew also explains the value of the support provided by the Medical Device Partnering Program (MDPP), a TTRA venture partner, and MDPP’s Olivia White joins the discussion.

As new COVID-19 variants are detected in Australia and a wave of COVID cases spike again, researchers at the University of Sydney have teamed up with an international consortium to develop a low-cost variant proof COVID-19 vaccine with the help of US $19.3 million funding from The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. 

To tell us more about the project, we are joined by Lead Investigator Professor Jamie Triccas from the University of Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases and the Charles Perkins Centre.

After spending his career researching new vaccines and treatments for tuberculosis, the world’s most deadly infectious disease, Professor Triccas has pivoted his knowledge of the body’s immune responses to new vaccines, to play a part in Australia’s scientific efforts to counter SARS-CoV-2 viruses. 

Professor Triccas details the benefits of collaborating with international partners - Bharat Biotech International (India) and ExcellGene SA (Switzerland) and how the vaccine, if successful, could  contribute to the long-term control of the virus and pave the way for vaccine development for other pathogens. 

Joining us on the podcast is Duncan Macinnis, MTPConnect’s Director of Stakeholder Engagement NSW and ACT. 

Industry Mentoring Network in STEM (IMNIS) Executive Director Dr Marguerite Evans-Galea comes into the MTPConnect Podcast Studio to discuss the importance of mentoring in career development and how IMNIS is working to boost mentoring opportunities across Australia. MTPConnect CEO Dr Dan Grant also joins us and shares his experiences as a mentee. 

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been described as a ‘silent pandemic’, and now takes more lives than malaria and HIV globally, and in Australia, over 1,600 deaths were attributed to AMR in 2019.

CARB-X (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) is a global non-profit partnership focused on supporting antibacterial research, based at Boston University. On a visit to Australia, CARB-X Chief Scientific Officer Dr Richard Alm (originally from Adelaide) joins the podcast to discuss the threat of antimicrobial resistance, the need to take a ‘village approach’ to develop new life-saving antimicrobial treatments, why it’s time for an AMR accelerator in Australia and tips for Australian start-ups & researchers on applying for future CARB-X funding rounds!

Richard also shares his journey, joining CARB-X following almost 20 years working in drug discovery in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Prior to joining industry, as a microbiologist from the University of Adelaide he undertook postdoctoral studies in the AMR area, in Australia and Canada. 

Also joining Caroline Duell on the podcast is Andrew Bowskill, MTPConnect’s Director of Stakeholder Engagement Queensland and co-chair of AAMRNet – Australia’s Antimicrobial Resistance Network, a multi-stakeholder expert group formed to address the impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on human health.

Professor Marshall is a celebrated vaccination researcher, who has been named the 2022 South Australia Australian of the Year.

Her work in vaccinology, public health and infectious diseases at the University of Adelaide’s Robinson Research Institute has focused on protecting babies and children from Meningococcal disease. 

She led the world’s largest meningococcal B vaccine study in South Australia, B Part of It, to investigate whether the vaccine could not only protect against the disease but also reduce spread, particularly in infants and young people. 

Professor Marshall joins us on the podcast to discuss how she got this game-changing meningococcal study off the ground in partnership with GSK Australia and reveals the study’s outcome, which has influenced immunisation programs globally.

She also shares her plans for her new role as the first Clinical Research Director at the Women’s and Children’s Health Network in Adelaide, her work with COVID-19 vaccine roll-outs in SA and nationally, and how she is visiting schools as the recently announced South Australia Australian of the Year to inspire young people to make a difference. 

Also joining Caroline Duell on the podcast is Jo Close, MTPConnect’s Director of the Adelaide Intermediary Program which works with Adelaide BioMed City to grow South Australia’s health and medical industry sector.

The Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation (AusHSI) is a leading health services research centre, based at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) within the Faculty of Health. The Centre is working with our Targeted Translation Research Accelerator Program providing support and mentoring to TTRA applicants and awardees with standalone behavioural interventions focused on diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD). 

Operations Director Megan Campbell joins the podcast to discuss how AusHSI’s research and implementation science is improving health services and patient outcomes. Megan gives an update on ‘Cardiac Month’ held in August highlighting how AusHSI’s Cardiac Health Services is addressing the burden of CVD.

Megan explains how the Centre is supporting LISTEN, a TTRA – funded research project led by Deakin University’s Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes, aiming to be the world’s first national helpline providing mental health support via telehealth for adults with diabetes and cardiovascular disease. 

MTPConnect’s Dr Mana Liao, Acting Senior Director of the Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program discusses the importance of working with AusHSI and flags that the third funding round of TTRA research projects will focus on indigenous communities, once priorities are set with guidance from the Lowitja Institute in a newly announced partnership 

Back in May 2019, MTPConnect launched the Biomedical Translation Bridge (BTB) program, a $22.3 million initiative of the Medical Research Future Fund, supporting the translation of new therapies, technologies and medical devices through to the proof-of-concept stage. In a first for Australia, it did that by pairing funded projects with industry mentors and commercialisation experts.

Three years on and a COVID-19 pandemic later and the program is now moving to completion. To celebrate this milestone, we brought together the 21 funded projects and our venture and education partners, Biocurate, UniQuest, Medical Device Partnering Program and the Bridge and BridgeTech programs, for the BTB Finale event at Luna Park in Sydney. 

In part one of this episode, hosts Caroline Duell and Dr Duncan Macinnis walk the floor catching up with awardees, guests and partners including MTPConnect Chair Sue MacLeman, NSW Parliamentary Secretary for Science, Innovation and Technology Robyn Preston MP. You will hear from some of the team - Prof Jason Monty, Samantha Bates and Kevin - behind the Medihood McMonty, a patient isolation hood developed to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 now being used in hospitals in Australia and internationally. The BTB program’s support and funding helped move the medical device from research to market. And Dr Andrew Milligan from the Medical Device Partnering Program explains how they provide expertise and guidance to projects like the Medihood to boost the chances of commercial success. 

MTPConnect is delivering the MRFF-funded $19.75 million Clinical Translation and Commercialisation Medtech (CTCM) program to support the development of home-grown medical devices. The program has opened its second and final funding round calling for applications from Australian small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) developing medical device projects for human use, the purpose of which is to diagnose, prevent, monitor, treat or alleviate a disease or injury, or modify or monitor anatomy or physiological functions of the body. Funding is offered between $250,000 - $1,500,000, for a maximum of 24 months and applicants will be required to provide a cash co-contribution to be eligible. Applications close on 7 October 2022. This episode takes you to the CTCM Information Session held in Brisbane in August and is a useful resource for applicants. You will hear from MTPConnect's Dr Duncan Macinnis, and the CTCM partners - MTAA's Stuart Anderson, MDPP's Dr Andrew Milligan and Cicada Innovation's Hebbat Mahny - on tips to consider when preparing an application.

Back in May 2019, MTPConnect launched the Biomedical Translation Bridge (BTB) program, a $22.3 million initiative of the Medical Research Future Fund, supporting the translation of new therapies, technologies and medical devices through to the proof-of-concept stage. In a first for Australia, it did that by pairing funded projects with industry mentors and commercialisation experts.

Three years on and a COVID-19 pandemic later and the program is now moving to completion. To celebrate this milestone, we brought together the 21 funded projects and our venture and education partners, Biocurate, UniQuest, Medical Device Partnering Program and the Bridge and BridgeTech programs, for the BTB Finale event at Luna Park in Sydney. 

In part two of this episode, hosts Caroline Duell and Dr Duncan Macinnis walk the floor catching up with awardees and partners. We hear from Dr Alison Thistlethwaite from Melbourne-based biotech MycRx - developing first-in-class small molecule inhibitors of the Myc oncoprotein as safe and effective treatments for cancer. Dr Jeremy Paull from Melbourne biotech Starpharma talks about how the funding supported the development of their anti-viral nasal spray, Viraleze™  within 12 months which is now registered for sale in more than 30 countries. And venture partners Dr Mark Ashton from Uniquest, the Biocurate team of Linda Peterson, Dr Tifelle Reisinge and Dr Eric Hayes, and BridgeTech’s Professor Lyn Griffiths explains how they bring their expertise in commercialisation to assist BTB projects reach commercialisation stage. 

As AusBiotech prepares to lead the largest ever Australian delegation to the BIO International Convention in Philadelphia, its CEO Lorraine Chiroiu joins MTPConnect CEO Dr Dan Grant in the MTPConnect Podcast studio to give you tips on how to maximise opportunities from the mission. 

Inventia Skin is a Sydney-based start-up on a mission to revolutionise wound repair by developing Ligō, a skin printing robot. It  delivers rapid and precise regenerative cellular therapy products directly onto a wound and could help to treat difficult to heal skin burns. 

A number of partners - high profile scientists and physicians - are lending their expertise to the project, including world renowned burns surgeon Professor Fiona Wood, and leading bioprinting researcher, Professor Gordon Wallace. The partnership will endeavour to print a patient's own cells, embedded in an optimised matrix material, directly onto a wound site to accelerate and improve healing after skin injury.

The project was awarded $1M through our BioMedTech Horizons program, an initiative of the Medical Research Future Fund.  

MTPConnect hosts Caroline Duell and Elizabeth Stares chat to Inventia Life Science’s CEO Dr Julio Ribeiro and CTO Dr Aidan O'Mahony about their expanding company, new manufacturing premises, an upcoming clinical trial in 2023 and nomination for a KUKA Innovation Award 2022.  

CSIRO’s year-round Kick-Start program has helped over 200 early-stage start-ups and small businesses pursue R&D activities by providing access to CSIRO research and capability. This includes help with articulating a company’s research question, connecting businesses with relevant CSIRO researchers and fifty per cent matched funding support to improve affordability. 

One of the company’s that reached out to CSIRO was WA-based Singular Health - an ASX-listed medical technology company improving patient education & enabling patient-specific surgeries through their innovative technology converting 2D medical images such as CT, MRI and PET scans into 3D/VR scans using artificial intelligence (AI). 

Dr Megan Sebben, CSIRO’s Kick-Start Program Manager, joins the podcast to tell us how startups can apply to the program. And Singular Health’s Chief Operating Officer James Hill talks us through the company’s journey using the Kick-Start Program twice, working with CSIRO’s Data61 Team to leverage their expertise on AI, innovate manufacturing processes, and build on their software design. 

Also joining host Caroline Duell is Dr Tracey Wilkinson, MTPConnect’s Director of Stakeholder Engagement Western Australia. 

To mark International Clinical Trials Day, we’ve brought together a high powered panel to explore why clinical trials are so important to patient health - and national wealth. 

Our CEO Dr Dan Grant is joined in the MTPConnect podcast studio by special guests CT:IQ Program Director Leanne Weekes, GSK Australia’s Head of Clinical Research Carrie Bloomfield and from California, Deep 6 AI Vice President Eric Gildenhuys. 

MTPConnect hits The MedTech Conference in Boston, USA, leading a delegation of 18 Australian companies to showcase Australia’s outstanding innovative medical technologies and capabilities to the world’s largest medtech market. 

With the creation of the unmissable Australian Pavilion exhibit and a top-level visit program of keynotes and networking events, the mission was supported by Austrade and state partners Global Victoria, Invest & Trade Western Australia, NSW Health, Trade and Investment Queensland and the Government of South Australia.

In this first episode of our two-part special, MTPConnect CEO Stuart Dignam chats to Rachel Rath, Director of the BARDA Alliance for Johnson & Johnson Innovation after Team Australia toured the JLABS life science and healthcare incubator, the newest in J&Js worldwide stable of facilities. He also catches up with Australian cardiologist, Professor Ian Meredith, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Medical Officer from Boston Scientific, Caroline McCaffrey, Director of Investment & Trade at Global Vic and some Team Australia delegates including, iishield’s Dr Jeremy Kwarcinski, Hydrix’s Peter Lewis, Design and Industry’s Adam Donath, Cortical Dynamics’ Ashley Zimpel and Jay-Nik's Clare Brown.

MTPConnect hits The MedTech Conference in Boston, USA, leading a delegation of 18 Australian companies to showcase Australia’s outstanding innovative medical technologies and capabilities to the world’s largest medtech market. 

With the creation of the unmissable Australian Pavilion exhibit and a top-level visit program of keynotes and networking events, the mission was supported by Austrade and state partners Global Victoria, Invest & Trade Western Australia, NSW Health, Trade and Investment Queensland and the Government of South Australia.

In the second of this two-part special, MTPConnect’s CEO Stuart Dignam chats to Medical Alley Association’s Vice President of Intelligence Frank Jaskulke ahead of signing an MoU. The agreement will build on an already strong relationship and help support Australian medtech companies and start-ups seeking access to the US Market. Stuart also catches up with some Team Australia delegates making connections in Boston, including, CSIRO’s Dr Dharmini Robertson, Singular Health’s Martina Mariano, IDE Group’s Leah Trend, Crow Clinical’s Julie Hicks and Julie Von Grom, WearOptimo’s Nicolas Gikakis, Virtetic’s Dr Ricardo Garcia Rosas, Customa’s Dr Guan Tay, Ferranova’s Stewart Bartlett, Datawre’s Dr Stephanie Chausis and Mobius Medical’ s Stefan Czyniewski.

It’s World Antimicrobial Awareness Week and this year’s theme is “Preventing Antimicrobial Resistance Together”. We chat to Bugworks, a clinical stage pharmaceutical company, headquartered in the US, with subsidiaries in India and Australia, currently developing novel antibacterials and immunotherapies.

Bugworks’ Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Anand Anandkumar, joins the podcast from Bangalore, India to talk about the challenges of developing new antimicrobials, the boost from CARB-X accelerator that is keeping their lights on, and why push and pull incentives are vital for innovation. Dr Anandkumar reveals why the company chose Adelaide in South Australia as the site for the first-in-human Phase 1 clinical trial of one of two antibacterial agents in development. And we pose the question – does Australia need a CARB-X style accelerator to supercharge its efforts to curb AMR?

Joining host Caroline Duell is Andrew Bowskill, MTPConnect’s Director of Stakeholder Engagement for Queensland and co-chair of the Australian Antimicrobial Resistance Network (AAMRNet), established by MTPConnect as Australia’s first multi-stakeholder expert group formed to address the impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on human health. AAMRNet, in conjunction with CSIRO, recently released the ‘Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Impact Report: How big is Australia's AMR threat?, which reviews gaps in our data collection methods to find out how many people are dying from drug-resistant infections in Australia. 

MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program will open Round 3 of its Research Projects funding opportunity in early 2023 to support diabetes and cardiovascular disease projects that address the unmet health and medical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in rural, remote, regional, and urban centres. 

In anticipation of the round, MTPConnect hosted a webinar to highlight key elements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research to consider when building research projects and teams.

You will hear from three leading Indigenous researchers, all dedicated to ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research is conducted by community, for community with a long-lasting impact on health and wellbeing, including Professor Alex Brown, Professor of Indigenous Genomics, The Australian National University and Telethon Kids Institute, Dr Michelle Kennedy, Executive Manager of Research and Knowledge Translation, Lowitja Institute, and Ray Kelly, Accredited Exercise Physiologist/Researcher and creator of ‘Too Deadly for Diabetes’.

Australian company Minomic has developed the MiCheck Prostate blood test that uses an algorithm, together with other biomarkers, to estimate the risk of a patient having aggressive prostate cancer. The diagnostic overcomes the low accuracy of conventional screening tests to reduce unnecessary intervention such as painful biopsies and improve overall management of the patient. 

The test was launched in the US in 2022, after Minomic was the first to sign up to the 20/20 GeneSystems’ Clinical Lab Innovation Axcellerator (CLIAx) - providing a ‘soft landing’ to help diagnostic test innovators worldwide to substantially reduce the time and cost of launching their tests in the U.S. 

Minomic CEO and Managing Director Dr Brad Walsh joins MTPConnect host Caroline Duell from Sydney to talk about the company’s commercialisation journey and how it launched into the US market after working with urologists around the world during COVID-19. Minomic received funding through Federal Government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiative and is working with Sonic Healthcare to make the test available in Australia. 

In this episode, we introduce MTPConnect’s inaugural CEO, now Chair – Sue MacLeman. Sue steps into the MTPConnect podcast studio to reflect on her career, how being a mentor for IMNIS has made her positive about the future of STEM professionals and to discuss the way forward for MTPConnect and the sector. 

For this episode we tap into an international perspective on the digital health sector and the business of healthcare.

Lisa Suennen is a US-based entrepreneur and industry advisor. After thirty years in healthcare and seeing little progress in efficiency and optimisation of care, she moved into the digital health space, working as a venture capital investor, speaker and writer. 

Lisa visited Australia recently in her role as Chair of ANDHealth’s Digital Health Investment Advisory Committee. ANDHealth is Australia’s leader provider of accelerator, incubator and commercialisation programs helping to scale digital health technology companies. MTPConnect works closely with ANDHealth through the REDI initiative and the TTRA and CTCM programs.

Lisa joins host Caroline Duell to discuss her views on the development of the Digital Health sector, sharing her expertise as both an investor and advisor.

https://venturevalkyrie.com/

MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program has opened a new funding round to support diabetes and cardiovascular disease research projects that address the unmet health and medical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in rural, remote, regional, and urban centres. 

To develop this Indigenous-specific round, MTPConnect has partnered with the Lowitja Institute to lead the priority setting and ensure the voices of Indigenous communities have been centred in every aspect of the process to determine the health priority areas that will receive research funding. 

To find out more about the application process, project eligibility and selection criteria, listen in to this TTRA Information Session to hear  from MTPConnect's TTRA team – Dr Mana Liao, Dr Erin McAllum and Dr Andionne Parlade, and Lowitja Institute’s Dr Michelle Kennedy, NACCHO’s Christopher Lee, Diabetes Australia’s Deanne Minniecon and AusHSI’s Megan Campbell.  Applications close 28 April 2023.

We talk to Sydney-based eye surgeon Dr Sarah Crowe, Founder and Director of 4eyesVision who has invented the 4eyesVision Kit to correct refractive error, the leading cause of blindness in the developing world and provide affordable glasses on the spot for people in remote and developing communities. Dr Crowe shares her clinician entrepreneur story that started in the Solomon Islands and progressed with the help of the Kokoda Track Foundation. She took her innovation through the 2020 Australian Technologies Competition winning the Global Social Impact Division, and the Health 10x Accelerator program winning a 2022 UNSW Founders Award. Having dispensed 1,000 pairs of glasses already, Dr Crowe is now focused on securing funding to scale up the organisation and commercialise the kit.
Find out more about her work at https://www.4eyesvision.org/

Our Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program, a Medical Research Future Fund initiative delivered by MTPConnect, launched Round 3 of its Research Projects funding opportunity in January 2023 to support diabetes and cardiovascular disease projects that address the unmet health and medical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in rural, remote, regional, and urban centres.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research ethics is an important part of research projects that involve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. During the webinar, you will hear from two speakers with extensive experience in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research ethics from both an ethics committee and a researcher perspective: Dr Summer May Finlay – Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW Ethics Committee, and Professor Jenni Judd – Professorial Research Fellow, Central Queensland University. They explore researchers’ ethical obligations, when you need to submit to an Aboriginal Human Research Ethics Committee, and the importance of cultural safety in research design and reciprocity. Applications close 28 April 2023.

It’s three years ago this month that COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation. We’ve seen nearly 800 million confirmed cases around the world and nearly 7 million deaths… and there are signs that another wave is underway in Australia as we head into the colder months. But imagine those numbers if we didn’t have the vaccines – particularly the mRNA vaccines.  

In this episode, we meet the Hungarian born, US scientist Dr Katalin Karikó. It’s her research, along with collaborator, Dr Drew Weissman from the University of Pennsylvania, that gave the world the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines. 

Dr Karikó is one of the key participants in this year’s ‘Science Meets Parliament’ conference, delivered by Science and Technology Australia (STA).

She is joined by STA’s Chief Executive, Mischa Schubert, for a fireside chat on International Women’s Day.

MTPConnect is again partnering with STA for the ‘Science Meets Parliament’ National Press Club Address later this month, which will be delivered by Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic. 

MTPConnect has been on the ground in the city of Brotherly love, Philadelphia as part of the big Australian delegation to the 2019 BIO International Convention. It's the world's biggest gathering of the biotech and pharma sector and in this episode our COO Stuart Dignam and our Managing Director and CEO Dr Dan Grant take you inside BIO, bringing you interviews with some of the key people. 

The Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program, a Medical Research Future Fund initiative delivered by MTPConnect, launched Round 3 of its Research Projects funding opportunity on 30 January 2023 to support diabetes and cardiovascular disease projects that address the unmet health and medical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in rural, remote, regional, and urban centres.

The translation of knowledge and evidence into practice is challenging, and thoughtful and systematic implementation into healthcare systems and communities is key for new products and innovations to be effective, acceptable and sustainable. In this podcast, you will hear from Professor Gillian Harvey, Strength Lead, Implementation at the Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation (AusHSI) and Professor Ray Mahoney, Professor of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Discipline Lead for Population Health, Flinders University and Visiting Scientist, Australian eHealth Research Centre (AeHRC), CSIRO. They explore the general principles of Implementation Science, and what it looks like in practice with examples within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research. Applications for the Round 3 funding opportunity close 28 April 2023.

To mark our 150th episode, we are delighted to introduce MTPConnect’s newly appointed Chair, the Honorable Jaala Pulford. A passionate advocate for the medical technology, biotech and pharmaceutical sector, Jaala has a long and distinguished career in government including Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy. 

Jaala chats with host Caroline Duell about her ministerial achievements, how COVID-19 has refocused our efforts on sovereign innovation and manufacturing, and how she hopes to build on MTPConnect’s seven years of success and help more Australian innovative medical products make it to patients.

BellaSeno is a clinical-stage medical device company born in Queensland in 2015 and now expanded to Liepzig in Germany. They are developing a next generation fully resorbable breast implant for soft tissue reconstruction, which recently started clinical trials in Australia. 

We connect with BellaSeno’s Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer Dr Mohit Chhaya and Chief Medical Officer Dr Tobias Grossner in Germany, to discuss their ground-breaking 3D printing technology that aims to restore breast tissue. In a global collaboration, their team has been working with Queensland’s Herston Biofabrication Institute. 

And Brisbane breast surgeon and Director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Institute, Professor Owen Ung, shares a clinicians view on the importance of this innovation for patients. Professor Ung is a principal investigator for a trial which began recently in Queensland.

MTPConnect hosts are Caroline Duell, Director Media and Communications and Andrew Bowskill, Director of Stakeholder Engagement for Queensland.

The $22.3 million Biomedical Translation Bridge program opens for applications on 1 July. MTPConnect and our BTB partners BioCurate, UniQuest, the Medical Device Partnering Program and the Bridge and BridgeTech Programs took to the stage at the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre for an Information Session on how you can apply to the program and more! 

In July 2022, Defence launched the 'Safeguarding Australia through Biotechnology Response and Engagement' (SABRE) Alliance, to bring together biotech capabilities from Australia’s universities, research institutes, SMEs and manufacturers to connect them with the needs of the Defence and national security sectors. 

MTPConnect has played a role in establishing the SABRE Alliance and in March 2023, the ‘Advancing the SABRE Alliance’ workshop was held in Canberra, as part of the ‘Science Meets Parliament’ program. Our podcast host Caroline Duell was at the event to find out about the initiative and how the sector can get involved. We hear from SABRE Alliance Co- Chairs, Dr Peter Shoubridge (DSTG) and Professor Mark Hutchinson (STA), who explain the origins and purpose of the SABRE Alliance. SABRE Committee members Sue MacLeman, Professor Emily Hilder (DSTG), Dr Leigh Farrell (DMTC) and Major Ricky Schmidt talk about the importance of industry, science and researchers coming together to solve Defence’s most pressing needs. We also hear from industry and science representatives, UQ’s Professor Trent Munro from Microba, Professor Jia-Yee Lee from the University of Melbourne, Paul Davies from Abbott and Dr Andy Shepherd from CSIRO. 

ANDHealth specialises in the acceleration of commercialisation of evidence-based digital health technologies through targeted programs and expert support. Their ANDHealth + Program funded by the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund has opened for applications. ANDHealth Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Grace Lethlean explains how thisunique accelerator can be a gamechanger for those SMEs who are selected to share in up to $3.75M of project funding per intake.

Cardihab is a digital health company focused on improving cardiac rehabilitation who was selected to take part in ANDHealth + in 2021. We find out from CEO Helen Souris all about the benefits of securing this funding and commercialisation support and her tips for digital health innovators thinking of applying.  Cardihab was also awarded funding through MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator for Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease to develop their digital health therapeutic for heart failure. ANDHealth is a TTRA partner and has been supporting Cardihab with mentoring and commercialisation advice.

Hosts are Caroline Duell, MTPConnect’s Director Media and Communications and Dr Mana Liao, MTPConnect’s Acting Senior Director, TTRA Program.

Apply for ANDHealth + by 18 June 2023 at the ANDHealth website.

Tens of thousands of central venous catheters designed for adult bodies are inserted into the delicate veins of newborns in Australian intensive care settings every year for life-saving care. 

But positioning the catheter tip can be challenging and if not done correctly, can lead to dangerous complications for children who are already critically ill.  

Navi Medical Technologies is developing the Neonav, an ECG tip location system to help guide clinicians during insertion of a central line, to get it right the first time and then to check it doesn’t move. 

Navi’s ‘smart catheter’ was recently granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the FDA in mid-December 2022; and the company was awarded funding in MTPConnect’s Clinical Translation and Commercialisation Medtech Program. And further clinical trials are due to start soon.

Navi’s Co-founders, CEO Alex Newton and Co-CFO Brad Bergmann, join host Caroline Duell to discuss how the idea of neonatologist Dr Christiane Theda has become a reality, the benefits of the FDA’s medical device programs and tips on how to successfully grow a start-up and attract funding support. 

BioEYES is an internationally-recognised STEM education program through Monash University’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) and the Australian Regenerative Medicine Insitute (ARMI). Monash BDI Outreach Education Coordinator Laura Reid takes BioEYES to primary and secondary schools across Victoria, opening kids’ minds to the power of STEM - and the magic of zebrafish. 

ARIA Research is a Sydney-based start-up developing technologies delivering a sense of vision via sound (echolocation) to people who are blind or have low vision. The company’s defining advantage has been its diverse and inclusive team, which incorporates employees and end users living with blindness into every aspect of the project and organisation. 

Their breakthrough bionic vision system was funded initially through MTPConnect’s BioMedTech Horizons program (see podcast episode 124) and now with support from the Clinical Translation and Commercialisation Medtech program, the company is gearing up for a clinical trial.

ARIA Research’s Co-Founder and CEO, Robert Yearsley, Program Director Dr Neesam Jeffers, and Research Coordinator Dr Lil Deverell join the podcast to talk about co-design practices, clinical trial planning, building a new Human Augmentation Laboratory (HAL) which will open soon in Sydney, and offer tips for medtech startups about commercialisation and the benefits of MRFF funding. 

Vexev founders, Dr John Carroll and Dr Eamonn Colley met in Sydney as PhD students interested in fluid dynamics. They have turned their talents to investigate blood flows to try and predict vascular disease.

They have created an ultrasound-powered imaging robot and software platform — to automatically take fast and consistent 3D scans, to supercharge the diagnostic power of vascular clinicians, with the simple push of a button.

The company has secured funding through Blackbird Ventures and are travelling between Australia and the US developing their production prototype and working with dialysis patients and clinicians to refine their technology.

WuXi NextCODE Chief Strategy Officer Alex Fowkes joins MTPConnect Managing Director and CEO Dr Dan Grant in the our podcast studio to talk about his career in life sciences which has seen him traverse the globe. Alex shares insights into how far Australia has come, what the future may look like in life sciences and the rise and rise of areas like precision medicine and genomics.

Back in June, MTPConnect joined the Australian delegation at BIO in Boston and organised several activities to showcase Australia’s fast-growing life sciences sector to the international biotech industry.

With a powerful #TeamAustralia focus and a 430-strong delegation from Australia, BIO2023 was literally the biggest and best to date with over 20,000 attendees from 73 countries.

In part one of this BIO episode, host Caroline Duell heads to the Australian Pavilion at the Boston Convention Centre to catch up with Australian companies, entrepreneurs and researchers looking to do business at BIO and drive collaborations, partnerships and investments. 

You will hear from Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley AO PSM, Deputy Premier of Queensland Hon Dr Steven Miles MP, Dimerix CEO Dr Nina Webster, Garvan Institute’s Dr Deborah Burnet, CSIRO’s Dr Erica Kneipp, St Vincent’s Hospital’s Dr Megan Robertson, Rhythm Biosciences’ Elena Deak, University of SA’s Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington AO, Phage Australia’s Dr Ruby Lin, Vaxxas’ David L. Hoey, Uniquest’s Dr Tamsin Terry, Uniquest’s Queensland Emory Drug Discovery Initiative Laura Kearney, Bentleys R&D’s Mike Burfield and Clinials’ Maree Beare.

We take you to MTPConnect’s inaugural seminar on 'Australian Women in Life Sciences Leadership - a Global Perspective' held during BIO 2023 in Boston. 

Founders, CEOs, board executives and managers gathered to discuss the opportunities and challenges faced by women in the biotech industry in a changing global market.

The seminar, supported by Sanofi, showcased inspiring stories, insights and advice from trailblazing leaders and we caught up with two of the guest speakers, Dr Iris Depaz from Sanofi, and Sibylle Hauser from California Life Sciences, about their career trajectories and what Women’s Leadership means to them. 

After the international BIO 2023 convention wrapped up with Team Australia, MTPConnect took a tour of global biopharmaceutical company Sanofi’s mRNA Centre of Excellence located in Greater Boston and learnt more about the company’s plans for the Translational Science Hub being set up in Queensland in partnership with the Queensland Government, Griffith University, the University of Queensland. 

We catch up with Sanofi’s Chief Technology Officer and Global Head of Research and Biomarkers at the mRNA Center of Excellence Frank DeRosa, and Sanofi’s Global Head of Vaccine Research and Development Dr Jean-Francois Toussaint. 

As part of Sanofi’s global research and development network, the Hub will initially focus on the evaluation of a new generation of mRNA vaccines, the development of a world-first chlamydia vaccine, building Australian biomanufacturing capabilities in Brisbane and connecting into the biomedical ecosystem.

In this episode, we take you to the Innovate Health conference and our Managing Director & CEO’s keynote address. Dr Dan Grant traces the history of megatrends in health and medical research and explores the emerging megatrends set to disrupt healthcare — all discussed in our new Sector Competitiveness Plan (available to download now).

MTPConnect’s REDI Fellowships are improving engagement between researchers and industry and providing fellows with real-world innovation experiences within commercial industry settings. 

The idea of connecting researchers with industry is critical for the growth of Australia’s medical products sector and so far, 49 Fellows have been selected for industry placements, some with multinational companies, spearheading global collaborations and connections. 

One of those Fellows is Mark Taylor, Professor of Biomedical Engineering from the Medical Device Research Institute, at Flinders University in Adelaide whose work involves computational-based orthopaedic biomechanics to improve surgical planning and healthcare outcomes. 

Mark tells us about his REDI Fellowship with Synopsys Northern Europe, part of US-based Synopsys, a world leader in electronic design software, and how working with the Synopsys Simpleware team increased his skills in orthopaedic production development and software commercialisation, primarily through an in silico clinical trials platform. Find out how the experience has changed his mindset and research focus, and why he believes more research academics need an ‘industry buddy’.

Hosts are Caroline Duell, MTPConnect’s Director Media and Communications and Jo Close, MTPConnect’s Director, Adelaide Intermediary Program.

As Australia’s life sciences industry accelerator, MTPConnect’s is backing Australian medical devices of the future through the BioMedTech Horizons Program. It’s a $45 million initiative of the Medical Research Future Fund to bring life-saving medical products from an idea to patients. 

It’s about nurturing medtech companies through the first valley of death and de-risking product development to increase the appeal to private investment.  

The first phase of the program supported 11 companies. And from 2019, a further three rounds awarded $30.3 million in funding to 38 companies. The good news is these latest projects have again captured the interest of investors, going on to secure at least $479 million of further flow-on and external investment. With the program wrapping up, we brought these innovators together for the BioMedTech Horizons Finale event in Melbourne and released an Impact report to share their innovation journeys. 

In this episode, we talk with BMTH program lead, Dr Gerard Gibbs and MTPConnect Chair the Honorable Jaala Pulford about the impacts of the program and the value of catalyst funding.

We also meet some of the awardees for an update on their promising innovations, including Robert Yearsley from ARIA Research, Anshul Dayal from Neuromersiv, Dr William Parr from 3DMorphic, Dr Ash Attia from Bionic Vision Technologies and Dr Cameron Ferris from Inventia. 

As Australia’s life sciences industry accelerator, MTPConnect’s is backing Australian medical devices of the future through the BioMedTech Horizons Program. It’s a $45 million initiative of the Medical Research Future Fund to bring life-saving medical products from an idea to patients. 

It’s about nurturing medtech companies through the first valley of death and de-risking product development to increase the appeal to private investment.  

The first phase of the program supported 11 companies. And from 2019, a further three rounds awarded $30.3 million in funding to 38 companies. 

The good news is these latest projects have again captured the interest of investors, going on to secure at least $479 million of further flow-on and external investment.
  
With the program wrapping up, we brought these innovators together for the BioMedTech Horizons Finale event in Melbourne and released an Impact report to share their innovation journeys. 

In the second of this two-part special, MTPConnect’s Caroline Duell chats to BioMedTech Horizons Director Elizabeth Stares about how the program is designed to tackle challenges in commercialising early-stage innovations. 

Caroline also catches up with several awardees to find out more about their innovations, including Brendan Fafiani from Cyban, Matt Boustred from ResusRight, Rachel Stirling from Seer Medical, Professor Mark Kendall from WearOptimo, Dr Kyle Berean from Atmo Biosciences, Ashley Zimpel from Cortical Dynamics, Dr Gautam Balasubramanian from Bionics Institute and John Konstantopoulos from Artrya.

Many well-known Australian medical innovations have been developed by visionary clinicians – doctors, nurses and allied health professionals – including the cochlear implant and spray on skin. 

In part 1 of this double episode, we explore medical entrepreneurship in Australia with Dr Brandon Carp, a Melbourne-based doctor who changed up his medical career to pursue his entrepreneurial business ideas in healthcare. 

Brandon has been involved in the Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program (AUSCEP) established by MTPConnect’s REDI initiative. He is also behind the recently launched Australian Society for Medical Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Australia’s first home for clinicians wishing to make an impact at scale in healthcare.

He joins host Caroline Duell to discuss his journey to clinical entrepreneurship, the rise of the portfolio career, and why we need to do more to tap into the talent in our medical and healthcare system to strengthen Australia’s innovation capabilities.

The Bionics Institute has signed-up to join MTPConnect’s delegation to the 2019 MedTech Conference in Boston in September -- and you can too. CEO Robert Klupacs chats with us about the benefits of being part of the Australian delegation. He also shares his insights on how to take advantage of the conference and strategies for building connections and opening-up new market opportunities. 

Many well-known Australian medical innovations have been developed by visionary clinicians – doctors, nurses and allied health professionals – including the cochlear implant and spray on skin. 

In this special series we continue to explore how medical entrepreneurship can transform healthcare and meet Associate Professor Fiona Brownfoot, a specialist obstetrician and a clinician-scientist based in Melbourne.

Fiona has co-founded healthtech start-up Kali Healthcare that is developing a new pregnancy monitoring system that consists of a small wearable device and sensor patch that very accurately picks up a baby’s heart rate.

Fiona joins hosts Caroline Duell and Dr Brandon Carp, President and founder of the Australian Society for Medical Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ASME), to discuss her career choices straddling obstetrics and medtech innovation, taking part in the Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program and ASME to avoid a lonely journey, and her motivation to prevent stillbirths through Kali Healthcare’s life-changing device to keep mothers and babies safe.

Dubbed the superbug pandemic, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been recognised by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 public health threats facing humanity. 

Effective antibiotics underpin modern medicine and yet, it takes just two to three years for new antimicrobial medicines to become ineffective against superbugs. Worryingly, the innovation pipeline for new antibiotics is stagnating. 

An estimated 10 million people globally will die each year by 2050 from infections that can be readily treated today.

To mark this year’s World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, MTPConnect and its Australian Antimicrobial Resistance Network (AAMRNet), has launched the second of its Fighting Superbugs reports, Fighting Superbugs: Ensuring Australia is Ready to Combat the Rise of Drug Resistant Infections, prepared in response to the Australian Parliament’s report, The New Frontier – Delivering better health for all Australians.

The independent report developed by Evohealth presents nine recommendations, urging immediate action to enhance the availability of new antibiotics and equip the Australian healthcare system to fight the superbug pandemic.

Hosts Caroline Duell and MTPConnect’s Andrew Bowskill co-chair of the AAMRNet discuss AMR with two of the reports’ authors - Former Chair of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee Emeritus Professor Lloyd Sansom, a renowned pharmacy academic, policy advisor and researcher and Renae Beardmore, Founder and Managing Director of specialist health advisory firm Evohealth and former Chief Pharmacist for the ACT. You can find the report on MTPConnect’s website.

As thousands in the medical technology sector headed to Anaheim, California for The MedTech 2023 Conference, MTPConnect was making sure that the 20 companies and organisations joining the Australian delegation were given opportunities to showcase their capabilities and make valuable US and international connections. 

In this podcast special from Los Angeles, our CEO Stuart Dignam was with the delegation when he caught up with US medtech movers and shakers to gain some insights into how to crack the world’s largest medical technology market. Tune in to hear from Edwards Lifesciences’ Dr Farzad Azimpour, Scalehealth’s Chris Spearman, BioscienceLA’s Dave Whelan, Peptilogics’ Dr Nick Pachuda and Medical Alley’s Kylle Jordan. Stuart also connected with two Australians now based in the US – BiVACOR’s Founder and CTO Dr Daniel Timms who is developing a total artificial heart at the company’s manufacturing and R&D site in California, and Stryker’s Vice President and General Manager ENT Business Unit, Kate Stewart who is now based in Minnesota. They shared their tips on doing business in the US, leveraging technology and scaling up innovations for global markets.

The Team Australia delegation was backed by Austrade and our partners, Global Victoria, Trade and Investment Queensland, Invest and Trade WA. 

The GSK Australia Graduate Researcher Program (GRP) is a 12-month work placement program for PhD graduates supported by MTPConnect's Researcher Exchange and Development within Industry (REDI) initiative showcasing opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry by providing hands-on experience for postdoctoral biomedical/science researchers.

Since 2021, the GRP program has been opening doors for PhD science graduates and post-doctoral research academics who are interested in pursuing careers in the vaccines and pharmaceutical industry. 

As the program draws to a close, we take you to GSK’s Australian headquarters in Abbotsford, to find out more about the career-changing impact of the GSK Graduate Researcher Program (GRP) on the participants and the GSK team. 

Hear from MTPConnect’s REDI Director Jarrod Belcher, GSK Medical Manager – Oncology and GRP Lead, Dr Niamh Mangan, GSK Associate Brand Manager Dr Terence Tieu and GRP interns Dr Niloufar Ansari (Medical Affairs Specialty Care – Oncology), and Dr James Cooney (New Products Specialty)

For anyone thinking of moving from research/academia to the pharmaceutical industry this 2-part series is for you. We draw the curtain to find out what sort of career roles are available, discuss career satisfaction and get some tips from those who have made the move. 

MTPConnect’s REDI initiative is made possible by the Medical Research Future Fund.

The GSK Australia Graduate Researcher Program (GRP) is a 12-month work placement program for PhD graduates supported by MTPConnect's Researcher Exchange and Development within Industry (REDI) initiative showcasing opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry by providing hands-on experience for postdoctoral biomedical/science researchers.

Since 2021, the GRP program has been opening doors for PhD science graduates and post-doctoral research academics who are interested in pursuing careers in the vaccines and pharmaceutical industry. 

As the program draws to a close, we take you to GSK’s Australian headquarters in Abbotsford, to find out more about the career-changing impact of the GSK Graduate Researcher Program (GRP) on the participants and the GSK team. 

Hear from GSK Specialty Care Business Unit Director Katrina Vanin, GSK Health Economic Lead Simon Barnfather, GSK Director of Clinical Research Carrie Bloomfield, ViiV Clinical Support Specialist Amy Dearsley, and GSK Australia’s Head of Communications Angela Hill.

For anyone thinking of moving from research/academia to the pharmaceutical industry this 2-part series is for you. We draw the curtain to find out what sort of career roles are available, discuss career satisfaction and get some tips from those who have made the move. 

MTPConnect’s REDI initiative is made possible by the Medical Research Future Fund.

Brett Carter is the CEO of the Cancer Therapeutics CRC and he joins us in the MTPConnect podcast studio to chat his team’s work, their project to build a comprehensive drug discovery library and the growing importance of cancer immunotherapy.

MTPConnect’s Clinical Translation and Commercialisation Medtech (CTCM) program held its first annual Symposium in Sydney recently, bringing together all 11 companies from around Australia who are recipients of CTCM funding to develop new medical devices to improve health and wellbeing.

In this episode, host Caroline Duell meets some of these Australian trailblazers - Eudaemon Technologies, CathRx, Ventora Medical, LBT Innovations, and 4DMedical, to find out more about their innovations and how the CTCM program is supporting their commercialisation journeys.

You will hear about a next generation hydrogel condom for better contraception and sexual health; a new ablation catheter for treating atrial fibrillation; a contrast-free combined air flow and blood flow 4D lung function scanner; a more accurate airway pressure monitor to detect respiratory distress in newborn babies on breathing support systems; and a compact platform technology to speed up microbiology workflow.

The CTCM program, delivered by MTPConnect, is made possible by the Medical Research Future Fund.

Innovators have told us that funding is important but difficult to navigate. The Australian Government is committed to investing billions of dollars into medical research and industry growth, cultivating a culture of translation and improving health for all Australians. So MTPConnect’s Adelaide Intermediary Program kicked off its first SA Insights event in 2024 by bringing the Commonwealth funders together to offer invaluable insights, advice, and inspiration to over 200 guests.

This episode takes you to the event at the University of Adelaide, where our host Jo Close, Director for the Adelaide Intermediary Program, chats to six distinguished leaders, each representing national funding programs that drive Australia's healthtech innovations including AusIndustry’s David Luchetti, CRC-P Manager Martin Dent, Medical Research Future Fund’s Tracey Laba, National Reconstruction Fund’s Rebecca Manen, Cooperative Research Australia’s Jane O’Dwyer, and Thomas Ting from Australia’s Economic Accelerator.

Listen in to find out how to align an innovation with the right funding program and pick up some tips for making successful applications. 

The Translational Research Institute and Vaxxas are supported by MTPConnect through the Growth Centre Initiative to increase Australia’s skills and capabilities in manufacturing. This week, we’re in Brisbane where our COO Stuart Dignam chats to TRI’s Michelle Richards and Vaxxas’s Charles Ross to discuss the impact of their projects.

Perth- based biotech Argenica Therapeutics is developing therapies to treat stroke and other neurological conditions. A new neuroprotective peptide treatment is now being tested for ischaemic stroke patients presenting to emergency departments at 10 hospitals around Australia and is expected to improve patient outcomes by protecting the brain tissue from dying until blood flow can be restored. 

CEO and Managing Director Dr Liz Dallimore joins hosts Caroline Duell and WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub Director, Dr Tracey Wilkinson, to discuss the company’s journey from research institute spinout, working with the US FDA, the benefits of conducting clinical trials in Australia, the challenges of raising capital, and why she is passionate about representing the biotech sector on various boards.

Radiopharmaceuticals are precision nuclear medicines used for medical imaging and treatment that allow doctors to diagnose and deliver targeted therapies for diseases such as cancer. 

A new discussion paper from MTPConnect, ‘From Mines to Medicines. Australia’s Radiopharmaceuticals Future’ reveals how Australia is ready to play a leading role in the rise of the global radiopharmaceutical industry, as advanced therapies drive significant investment and rapid expansion. South Australia is identified as the ideal location to lead the development of Australia’s radiopharmaceuticals future, with end-to-end capabilities – from unique mining assets and a robust research ecosystem through to cutting-edge clinical services and specialised workforce. 

In this feature length episode, hosts Caroline Duell and Dana Bell, MTPConnect’s Partnerships Director South Australia, speak to experts in South Australia along the supply chain - from mines to medicines including: 

• UniSAs Professor Eva Bezak, Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council’s Industrial Transformation Training Centre (ITTC) for Radiation Innovation (Time code: 10.32) on researching new radiopharmaceuticals and building a highly skilled workforce to scale up,  

• SAHMRI’s Chady Barkil, Director, Molecular Imaging and Therapy Research Unit (MITRU) (Time code: 35.43) on manufacturing nuclear medicines and the supply chain challenges,

• EntX's Dr Massey de Los Reyes, Principal Scientist and Facilities Manager, on developing technology to transform mining waste into medical isotope production (at Time code: 57.36),

• Novartis ANZ’s Matt Zeller, Country President (Time code: 1.17.03) on how the company is reimagining cancer care with its precision nuclear medicine pipeline,

• Artesian’s Stephanie Morris, Investment Manager (Time code: 1.36.02) discusses the investment activity and interest in the growing radiopharmaceuticals market and,

• Department for Industry, Innovation and Science’s Dr Judy Halliday, Director Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Time code: 1.48.06) outlines South Australia’s strengths as a first mover to unlock the radiopharmaceutical industry opportunity. 

The Australian Stroke & Heart Research Accelerator (ASHRA) was established in early 2022 as part of the Targeted Translation Research Accelerator – a program delivered by MTPConnect for the Medical Research Future Fund.

This is a research centre with a difference. Lead by Australia’s foremost heart and stroke researchers, ASHRA is aiming to transform the field of cardiovascular and stroke research in Australia by bringing a new sector-wide focus on clinical impact and entrepreneurship.

ASHRA’s Director, Professor Clara Chow in Sydney and ASHRA’s Deputy Director Professor Stephen Nicholls in Melbourne, join host Caroline Duell to discuss why a research accelerator of this kind is needed, how ASHRA’s pioneering model is bringing together a likeminded academic and clinical community to drive change, and how they are collaborating with industry to deliver improved outcomes for Australians. 

Professor Clara Chow is a distinguished cardiologist and clinical researcher, Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney and serves as the Academic Director of the Westmead Applied Research Centre.

Professor Stephen Nicholls is a world-renowned cardiologist, inaugural Director of the Victorian Heart Institute and a Professor of Cardiology at Monash University. He also leads the Victorian Heart Hospital (VHH) - Australia's first dedicated heart hospital.

This is the first episode in series on ASHRA. 

Back in 2022, the Government of Western Australia issued a global challenge for a world-leading medical research and innovation solution to resolve a pressing problem of health service delivery in the remote Pilbara region.

Ten projects were selected as finalists and given 12 months proof of concept funding to deliver their solution on the ground in the Pilbara. With the competition ending in October, the best solution will be selected to take home the $5 million prize supported by WA government’s Future Health Research and Innovation Fund, Rio Tinto and BHP. 

To give us an update, we catch up with the WA Minister for Medical Research, the Honourable Stephen Dawson MLC and RioTinto’s Dampier Salt General Manager Operations, Laura Thomas.

Joining Caroline Duell on the podcast is co-host Dr Tracey Wilkinson, MTPConnect’s Director of Stakeholder Engagement in WA at the WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub. 

To find out more about The Challenge and the ten finalists visit the website. 

The ARCS Australia conference, supported by MTPConnect, has wrapped up for another year. It brought together key leaders in the MTP sector - and we chatted with many of them in this episode of our podcast series.

The Clinical Translation and Commercialisation Medtech (CTCM) program aims to boost commercialisation of home-grown medical products. It is delivered by MTPConnect on behalf of the Medical Research Future Fund.

WA-based VitalTrace is one of the companies participating in the CTCM program and developing a groundbreaking medical device to revolutionise fetal monitoring during childbirth. The company has set up an Australian-based manufacturing facility, received FDA Breakthrough device designation and will soon start its first clinical trial with mothers and babies. 

Joining host Caroline Duell on the podcast is Dr Chuong Phan, VitalTrace’s Manufacturing Lead, to share more about the progress and translation of DelivAssure, a unique biosensor innovation.

This episode comes to you from a special medtech event held in Melbourne and hosted by MTPConnect’s CTCM program and QUT’s The BridgeTech Program. The Design to Manufacturing Tours brought together a number of medtech startups to visit some of Australia’s leading medical manufacturing operations.

ARM Hub is a technology adoption hub based in Brisbane, with a focus on robotics, AI and design for manufacture for biomedical, energy and defence industries.

The not for profit was recently appointed as one of four AI Adopt Centres by the Government to provide a service for SMEs that demonstrates how data and AI can modernise business, build skills and boost productivity. ARM Hub is also leading the Australian Manufacturing Capability Network (AMCN) as an Industry Partner Organisation for the Industry Growth Program to help participating small and medium businesses bring new products and services to market.

Podcast host Caroline Duell caught up with ARM Hub’s Chief Operating Officer Samuel Jesuadian at BIO 2024 in San Diego, where MTPConnect and ARM Hub unveiled a joint accelerator to help biomedical companies harness the power of data and artificial intelligence (AI).

The Biomedical AI Sprints Accelerator will provide matched funding up to $50,000 to upskill a selected number of high growth companies in the use of AI and data analytics, provide access to affordable data management infrastructure, and create a tech-ready workforce. Find out more about the program and how to apply – EOIs close 30 July 2024.
Visit the ARM Hub website.

Diabetes affects one in 20 people. An important initiative to set up a ‘virtual’ emergency department designed for people living with diabetes has launched in Melbourne, Victoria during National Diabetes Week, with the aim of preventing unnecessary trips to hospital. 

The Victorian Virtual Emergency Department-Diabetes Service will be added to the existing Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED) giving patients 24/7 online video access to emergency nurses and doctors. As a world first, this new model of care will add a roster of diabetes specialists on weekend and evening shifts, when diabetes patients are most likely to present to a hospital emergency department.

Joining the podcast to talk about this new initiative is endocrinologist Professor Elif Ekinci, Director of Diabetes at Austin Health, Head of Department of Medicine at University of Melbourne, and Director of the Australian Centre for Accelerating Diabetes Innovations(ACADI). ACADI was established in 2022 through MRFF funding from the Australian Government’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program, delivered by MTPConnect.

Also joining the discussion is Northern Health’s Dr Loren Sher, an emergency specialist who led development of Australia’s first virtual emergency department model, now operating as a Victorian state-wide service. Loren has been instrumental in working with Elif to get the diabetes service up and running. 

Hosts are Caroline Duell, MTPConnect’s Director Media and Communications and Lauren Kelly, Senior Director of the TTRA program.

Back in June, MTPConnect led the Australian delegation at BIO 2024 in San Diego organising a range of activities to showcase Australia’s innovative life sciences sector to the international biotech industry. With a powerful #TeamAustralia focus and a 500-strong delegation from Australia, BIO2024 was the biggest and best ever! 

In this BIO Bites episode, hosts Caroline Duell and Stuart Dignam catch up with Australian and global companies, entrepreneurs and researchers doing business at BIO and find out what all the buzz is about at the world's largest biotech partnering event. 

We take you to the Australian Global VIP Networking and Business Reception held on Coronado Island, as special guest John F Crowley, BIO’s President and CEO, welcomes guests in a very inspirational way and Australia’s Minister for Industry and Science the Hon Ed Husic MP who spearheaded the delegation, makes an address to the global audience to raise Australia’s credentials as a global hub for advanced biomanufacturing and clinical trials. We take in a site visit tour around San Diego’s ecosystem and catch up with Illumina’s Dr Emma Ball about the latest in DNA sequencing technologies enabling research discovery and personalized health. And head to the Australian Pavilion to chat to Pending AI’s David Cardoso about their drug discovery platform enabled by artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics, Gelomics’ Christoph Meinert discusses their 3D cell culture technology for animal-free research and Bellberry’s Kylie Sproston discusses the lure of Australia as an attractive destination for clinical trials.

MTPConnect is thrilled to be supporting Western Australia’s burgeoning life sciences sector which is producing standout startups like OncoRes Medical. In this episode we meet their Managing Director and CEO Dr Kath Giles and introduce the new Director of Stakeholder Engagement at the MTPConnect WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub, Dr Kate Brooks. 

Back in June, MTPConnect led the Australian delegation at BIO 2024 in San Diego organising a range of activities to showcase Australia’s innovative life sciences sector to the international biotech industry. With a powerful #TeamAustralia focus and a 500-strong delegation from Australia, BIO2024 was the biggest and best ever! 

In this BIO Bites episode, hosts Caroline Duell and Stuart Dignam catch up with Australian and global companies, entrepreneurs and researchers doing business at BIO and find out what all the buzz is about at the world's largest biotech partnering event. 

We take a tour around San Diego’s ecosystem catching up with Rachel Rath from the Blue Knight Initiative at J&J Innovation’s JLABS who are supporting early-stage companies, and Dena Marrinucci from US startup Truvian Health who are working with Planet Innovation on a portable blood testing platform. At the Australian Pavilion we chat with University of Adelaide ’s Prof Mark Hutchinson on defence and the SABRE Alliance and find out how statistics and AI are adding value to the life sciences sector with Adelaide Data Science Centre’s Dr Melissa Humphries. Topelia Australia’s David Fox talks about their antiviral therapeutic targeting coronavirus infections, Bridgewest Ventures’ Saum Vahdat explains their investment in drug manufacturing in Australia and Attentive Science Australia’s Holly Stefl discusses their recent expansion into the clinical trial ecosystem in Australia. 

Biocom California is the US state’s advocate for the life sciences industry with a network of over 1700 members. With offices located in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Washington, D.C, and Tokyo the group is focused on building international collaborations and networks to bring new medicines to patients.

MTPConnect recently signed an MoU with Biocom California during a visit to San Diego for the 2024 BIO Convention to strengthen ties between the US and Australian life sciences sector. 

In this episode, MTPConnect CEO Stuart Dignam joins host Caroline Duell to chat with Co-founder, President and CEO of Biocom California, Joe Panetta, about the Biocom California journey that began more than thirty years ago to advocate for the Californian life science sector, one of the leading innovation hubs in the world. Joe shares his top tips for Australian companies looking to move into the US market and talks about Biocom California’s upcoming Global Life Science Partnering and Investor Conference in February 2025 in La Jolla which will provide an important avenue for companies to connect with investors. Australian biotech companies are encouraged to attend this event!

Omico is leading Australia’s largest cancer genomics initiative –giving 23,000 Australians nationwide with advanced or incurable cancers, access to genomic profiling to detect unique genetic variations in their tumours to identify potential matches to new targeted treatments options. It is opening up new treatment pathways, extending lives and attracting more international trials to Australia.

Professor David Thomas, renowned for his groundbreaking work in precision oncology, is the founder and Chief Science and Strategy Officer of Omico - the Australian Genomic Cancer Medicine Centre. 

In this episode, host Caroline Duell speaks with Professor Thomas to find out more about his mission to open up new treatment options for all cancer patients using genomics, the impact of pan tumour therapies on our healthcare system, and why we need to change the way we look at cancer care and cure right now before more people die unnecessarily.

Wollongong, south of Sydney, is famous for beaches, rainforests and increasingly its world-leading 3D bioprinting facility, TRICEP. In this episode of the MTPConnect podcast series, we tour TRICEP, speak with its Director Professor Gordon Wallace and Dr Stephen Beirne and delve into the world of cellular engineering and bioprinting.

In July 2024, MTPConnect was selected to deliver a new $28.5 million investment for Drugs and Devices, which builds on the legacy of the inaugural TTRA program.

The objective of TTRA Drugs and Devices is to accelerate development and commercialisation of promising drugs and medical devices into products that can reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease and complications of diabetes for patients, carers, families and community.

TTRA Drugs and Devices is now calling for Expressions of Interest (EOI), to fund eligible Australian start-ups, spin-outs and SMEs to develop innovative preventative, diagnostic, therapeutic and/or disease management drugs and devices for cardiovascular disease and the complications of diabetes (type 1 and type 2). Guidelines & application information can be found on the TTRA webpage. Submissions close at 16:00 AEDT on Monday 4 November 2024.

Hear from MTPConnect's TTRA Team Lauren Kelly, Dr Mana Liao and Dr Erin McAllum as well as experts Kenny Lean from Roche Diagnostics Australia, Dr Perdita Cheshire from CSL and Renza Scibilia from Breakthrough T1D.

See the TTRA Drugs and Devices webpage for more information.

As thousands in the medical technology sector headed to Toronto, Canada for The MedTech 2024 Conference, MTPConnect was making sure that the 18 companies and organisations joining the Australian delegation were given opportunities to showcase their capabilities and make valuable US and international connections with a stopover in the medtech hub of Minnesota, before hitting Toronto.

In this podcast special from North America, our MTPConnect CEO Stuart Dignam caught up with Kylle Jordan from Destination Medical Centre at the Mayo Clinic campus in Rochester Minnesota ahead of the Medtech conference to find out more about the 20-year initiative underway to expand the hospital precinct as a global medical care destination.

Then it was on to the three-day MedTech Conference. MTPConnect signed an MoU with Medical Alley and Stuart talks with their new president and CEO Roberta Dressen about working together to foster global partnerships in health technology.

Stuart was on the ground at the Australian Pavilion and caught up with some of Australia’s medtech movers and shakers including iYarn’s Founder and CEO Lockie Cooke, University of Melbourne’s Principal Research Fellow, Optometry and Vision Sciences, A/Prof Lauren Ayton, Materia Health’s Founder, Dr Emily Zhen as well as the delegation’s major supporter, Global Victoria’s Carolin McCaffrey.   

The Team Australia delegation was supported by our major sponsor the Victorian Government, through Global Victoria and Invest Victoria, as well as support from NSW Health and AusBiotech.

It’s World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week (WAAW) and the theme is "Educate. Advocate. Act now". It’s a yearly global campaign, raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and promoting ways to reduce the spread of drug-resistant infections. 

To mark the occasion, MTPConnect’s Andrew Bowskill, Co-chair of the Australian Antimicrobial Resistance Network, AAMRNet, and Anne Harris, Managing Director of Pfizer Australia and New Zealand join host Caroline Duell to discuss new approaches to fighting superbugs. Why it needs to be tackled holistically with a ‘One Health’ approach across all sectors, including the environment, animal health and agriculture. They discuss the role of vaccines as the first line of defence, and why a new subscription-style reimbursement model in Australia will help support equitable access to new treatments and restimulate investment in antibiotics R&D to meet future needs. We also find out how the recent upgrade to Pfizer’s manufacturing facility in Melbourne is an important development in the fight against AMR.

The MTPConnect Podcast team recently caught up with Pfizer Ventures Managing Partner Dr Barbara Dalton to talk about Australia’s strengths as a destination to conduct clinical trials. Dr Dalton discusses what’s so attractive about Australia to international companies and we explore the potential to grow the export earning potential of our clinical trials ecosystem. 

As World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week (WAAW) kicked off around the globe, the Australian Antimicrobial Resistance Network (AAMRNet) was meeting in Canberra to explore how Australia can better support the development of and access to new antimicrobial technologies. 

Key clinicians, researchers, industry and government representatives gathered to discuss how a subscription-style funding model for new antimicrobials might be adapted to be fit-for-purpose in Australia.

It’s an idea turned into reality by the UK’s National Health Service (the NHS) after it successfully piloted a world-first subscription reimbursement model, with the goal to improve access to much needed antibiotics, and at the same time incentivize the pharmaceutical industry to develop new antibiotics to tackle superbugs. 

David Glover, Assistant Director of Medicines Analysis at NHS England joined the workshop to explain the UK model in detail.

Afterwards he had a chat with Caroline Duell for the MTPConnect Podcast about the impetus for this pioneering approach, why paying manufacturers a fixed fee for antimicrobials can boost drug development and why this UK model, which is now being expanded, benefits governments, companies and patients. 

We meet Dr Daniel Timms, the Australian biomechanical engineer behind BiVACOR who has dedicated his life to developing a titanium Total Artificial Heart (TAH) to restore the lives of people with end-stage heart failure, a disease that impacted his own family.

It’s a 25-year quest that has taken him from a PhD at QUT, developing the device with his father in his parent’s kitchen in Queensland, to collaborating with experts around the world and expanding operations to the US on his mission to save lives.

In 2024 Daniel made history in Texas, with the first successful implantation of the titanium heart into a patient awaiting a heart transplant, as part of an FDA feasibility study. Since then, several patients have received the heart as a bridge to a heart transplant and now Australian patients will be involved in clinical studies.

MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator program for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, an MRFF initiative, has supported BiVACOR ’s development of a more portable external controller to allow for long-term use with the heart.

News of BiVACOR’s innovation has spread around the world as patients have shared their story of second chances after receiving the implant. Now we hear Daniel’s story, how the TAH is designed, his inspiration and approach to innovation, collaborations with NASA and transplant surgeons around the world, his plans to expand operations in Australia and what’s next for the privately held company he has put his heart and soul into as he aims to develop the TAH as a long term device that patients can have for the rest of their lives.

The 2019 MedTech Conference is fast approaching and Melbourne-based Hydrix will be there are part of the Aussie delegation. We chat to the company’s Director of Business Development Richard Stephens about his plans and expectations for this years’ conference. 

The Australian Stroke and Heart Research Accelerator, established through MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator for cardiovascular disease and diabetes on behalf the Medical Research Future Fund, is a research centre with a bold vision to deliver new health outcomes in coronary artery disease, heart failure and stroke.

Through clinical impact and entrepreneurship, an Australian wide network of academics, institutions, and industry partners are driving a high potential research portfolio and an education and training program with a commercialisation focus.

We talk to stroke and heart research experts Professor Geoffrey Donnan AO and Professor Jason Kovacic about the Centre’s groundbreaking work covering various pipeline projects, including BiVACOR’s Total Artificial Heart, advanced tele-robotic thrombectomy technologies and a national research clinical trials register, all aimed at improving health outcomes for Australians.

Joining host Caroline Duell is Lauren Kelly, MTPConnect’s Senior Director, Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

This episode is coming to you from MTPConnect’s Development Workshop Series held in Sydney for 52 start-up organisations from around Australia. The 2-day program was a terrific opportunity for companies participating in our Accelerator programs to get ‘investor ready’.

Advisory firm Intrinsika’s workshop, ‘Finding Your Intrinsic Value’, focused on how to reframe a company’s value beyond the financials, by identifying and maximising unique assets and pitching this value to investors.  

Intrinsika’s Brett Kensett-Smith and Michael Masterson joined host Caroline Duell at the event to discuss the importance of differentiating your company to capture investor attention and nailing a 30 second pitch. They share their list of intrinsic assets to consider including trade secrets and effective brand building and explain how cleverly navigating the patent landscape can make all the difference to companies looking to scale up.

Medical Alley is a powerhouse in global healthcare innovation, connecting startups and Fortune 100 companies to transform healthcare solutions. Headquartered in Minnesota, it’s one of the world’s largest medtech clusters.

At the 2024 MedTech Conference in Canada, MTPConnect and Medical Alley renewed an MOU to strengthen collaboration and support for Australian medtech companies looking to expand internationally.

Now, Medical Alley is launching a game-changing online training program, Medical Alley Academy, designed to help innovators move into the US market - a great opportunity for Australian companies to tap into.

Joining Caroline Duell to talk about this exciting initiative are Medical Alley CEO Roberta (Bobbie) Dresson and MTPConnect CEO Stuart Dignam.

What’s in this episode?

·       How Medical Alley is shaping the future of medtech

·       The changing trends and challenges in the US medtech ecosystem

·       All about Medical Alley’s new online Academy training 

·       Key opportunities for Australian medtech companies to expand to the U.S.

Tune in for expert insights and actionable advice for taking your medtech innovation global! 🎧✨

Dive into another episode coming to you from MTPConnect’s Development Workshop Series held recently in Sydney for 52 start-up organisations from around Australia. The 2-day program was a terrific opportunity for companies participating in our Accelerator programs to get ‘investor ready’.

Exportia Australia’s Christelle Damiens, an entrepreneur and award-winning author, shared her insights in the workshop “Accessing Global Markets”. Christelle is described as the go-to person for Australian companies looking to expand into the European market and she shared her methodologies, winning strategies and key learnings from more than 20 years of business development in Europe. 

Christelle joined host Caroline Duell at the event to discuss the complexities of the European regulatory landscape, some advice on export readiness, and the value of outsourcing sales and marketing to European experts and finding the right distribution partners to help you scale. 

Jeff Gibbs is a Director at Hyman Phelps and McNamara – the largest law firm specialising in FDA issues, based in Washington DC. With four decades of FDA expertise he delivers crucial insights for medical technology companies aiming to crack the US market. Peaking to the podcast during his national tour for the MTPConnect seminar series, this US-based regulatory veteran shares his strategic tips on the FDA submission process, and discusses the dramatically shifting FDA landscape that could make or break your US market entry strategy. 

Whether you're developing breakthrough medical technology or refining existing solutions, this episode delivers essential knowledge for anyone considering the US market. Subscribe to the MTP Connect podcast for more insights that will help your innovation journey from bench to bedside to global markets. 

We have a Nobel Laureate in the house for this week’s MTPConnect Podcast. Professor of Microbiology at UWA - and 2005 Nobel Prize winner - Professor Barry Marshall joins the MTPConnect team, along with Dr Josephine Muir, the CEO & Co-Founder of WA start-up, Noisy Guts. On the agenda - medtech innovation, the challenges of translation and how AI is changing everything. 

The 2019 MedTech Conference is underway and the MTPConnect team is on the ground in Boston to bring you exclusive chats with Australian delegates like Bionics Institute’s CEO Robert Klupacs and international participants like Finland’s Marcello van Rossum from the Helsinki Business Hub. 

The MTPConnect podcast team bring you more on the ground conversations with international delegates and our Australian companies at the 2019 MedTech Conference in Boston. Check out Dr Kath Giles and the OncoRes Medical team and Macuject’s Devinder Chauhan. JP Morgan's Mike Gietl, Evidence Matters' Leslie Wise, Nine Point Medical's Eman Namati and Austrade USA’s Elizabeth Thomas also share their experiences, observations and advice on getting Australian medtech into the US market.

MTPConnect is officially open for business in Queensland, after the launch of our new offices at the Translational Research Institute in Brisbane! Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Hon. Karen Andrews MP was on hand to open our offices and announce the IMNIS Regional Queensland Initiative that will see six PhD students from James Cook University and six students from CQ University have access to industry mentors in their university program. IMNIS Executive Director Dr Marguerite Evans-Galea AM, IMNIS mentor Kym Baker from Patheon and IMNIS mentee Nick Lee were also there to share the impact of IMNIS on their professional journeys.

Credits: Host Stuart Dignam