Innovatia

GROWING A WORLD LEADING BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN QUEENSLAND

top talent, and effectively marketing products in a competitive landscape. Queensland’s journey towards becoming a cen- tre for life sciences, biotechnology, and medical sciences is marked by its research excellence, col- laborative environment, and growing emphasis on commercialisation. To ensure ongoing devel- opment, stakeholders must continue to foster collaboration, support start-ups, attract venture capital, and address challenges collectively. For Queensland to thrive in the life and medi- cal sciences innovation space, it needs a bipar- tisan 20-year plan that focuses on infrastruc- ture and, more importantly, what we put in that infrastructure. The sector needs appropriate research grants and long-term support, allowing researchers to focus on scientific goals, rather than short-term concerns of where their next grant or research position is coming from. We need a clear articulation of state and national research priorities to focus research and commercialisation efforts in delivering on our innovation potential and capabilities. Without these priorities or plan, we are in dan- ger of losing a generation of researchers and being saddled with underutilised and even empty facilities. We risk becoming simply a research services state, a place to conduct clinical trials for others, rather than a place where innovation leads to meaningful, successful, and commer- cially practical applications. The business of innovation and commerciali- sation needs to be treated in the same way we treat good scientific research. As Stefan Thomke and Gary W. Loveman wrote in the May-June 2022 Harvard Business Review, “Senior management should take a scientific approach to making decisions. They should

challenge assumptions and investigate anom- alies by articulating testable hypotheses and conducting rigorous experiments that generate conclusive evidence.” If we get this right, Queensland, and indeed Australia, will continue to be an innovative and commercially successful powerhouse for the translation of medical research into practical application, with everyone from researchers, institutions, government, investors and ulti- mately society as winners. Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank Angela Bensted for her comments and feedback in the preparation of this manuscript. “We need a clear articulation of state and national research priorities to focus research and commercialisation efforts in delivering on our innovation potential and capabilities.”

For many thousands of years Queensland’s indigenous peoples, through observation of the natural environment, were Queensland’s first scientists. By Ian Frazer

O ver 200 years ago, European explor- ers set up a prison colony in what is now Brisbane, and over time the state of Queensland was established, with pros- perity derived from farming and gold mining. Queensland’s first University was established in Brisbane in 1909, and further facilitated devel- opment of knowledge through research, with an increased focus on medical research following the establishment of a medical school in 1936. The State government, recognising the signifi- cant range of tropical and other diseases preva- lent in Queensland, established the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in 1945, and ena- bled a growing research program on infection and disease. More recently, Queensland state government and the Queensland Universities have increasingly recognised that basic research in the biosciences and biomedicine could add to the prosperity and international recognition of Queensland. Significant government and university

investment in biomedical research infrastruc- ture in the early 21st century, aimed to make Queensland competitive with the other Australian states as well as internationally, in this rapidly growing field of human endeavour. “Queensland is now recognised internationally as a contributing significant biomedical research, specifically in infectious disease and prevention.” Countries and regions that have grown a suc- cessful biotechnology industry have shown that industry is most likely to succeed when: 1. Well-equipped academic facilities are provided staffed by talented researchers,

https://youtu.be/ucSGuc4-LcA

INNOVATIA

672

INNOVATIA

| Queensland Economic and Innovation Special Report

673