$1.2million in funding secured for two innovative projects

Telethon Kids Institute researchers are collaborating on two major projects that today received $1.2million in funding from MTPConnect - the Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals Industry Growth Centre.

Accelerating Australia project

MTPConnect has committed $1million in funding to the Accelerating Australia project over the next two yearsto boost entrepreneurship in the biomedical sector and help to translate medical research.

The Telethon Kids Institute is one of over 20 organisations to be collaborating on the project which is being led by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Research and Innovation.

The aim of the Accelerating Australia project is to create a culture of entrepreneurship and collaboration across the medical technologies and pharmaceuticals sector by providing access to best practice biomedical entrepreneurship training programs, shared commercialisation resources and a connected early-stage translational ecosystem.

Telethon Kids Institute Director of Research Services and Innovation, Professor Paul Watt, said the Institute is delighted to be associated with two successful projects funded through the MTPConnect Program.

“This funding is vital to help build networks between academia and industry and helps to facilitate the translation of research discoveries into clinical practice,” he said.

“The program is also committed to training the next generation of translational scientists who will drive Australia’s future pharmaceutical and medical device industries. This is an ideal fit for Telethon Kids, which sees itself as a translation focused Institute committed to making a difference.”

Chair of the Accelerating Australia Executive Committee, Associate Professor Kevin Pfleger, said the research community across the country is incredibly grateful to MTPConnect, CERI, all of the project partners for their commitment to Accelerating Australia.

“These are very exciting times for the medtech and pharmaceuticals sector, not just for the researchers, doctors and industry colleagues that are engaging through this endeavour and driving early stage innovation, but more importantly for the community that will benefit from the resultant healthcare advances,” he said.

You can view the extended Accelerating Australia media release here.

Accelerating Precision Therapies project

$200,000 in MTPConnect funding was today secured to support a major project aimed at transforming the way new therapeutic drugs are tested, giving the community and patients a greater say in treatment.

Telethon Kids Institute researchers are working in collaboration with Murdoch University and a long list of medical sector partners, to carry out the feasibility study into the development of national digital infrastructure to support adaptive clinical trials and ‘trial-ready’ natural history cohort studies.

Through public and private partnerships, the project aims to evaluate new drugs and other therapeutic products and facilitate faster access to new therapies by Australian patients.

Head of Infectious Disease Implementation at Telethon Kids, Dr Tom Snelling, said effective collaboration is critical to the project’s success.

“The Telethon Kids Institute is excited to be partnering with Murdoch University in this endeavour. We realise the need to adopt more innovative methods of evaluation if precision medicines are to be brought from the bench to the bedside.”

“The funding aims to help Australian biotech companies to partner with patient and academic groups in adaptive clinical trials and trial-ready cohort studies through the development of digital tools.”

Director of the Centre for Comparative Genomics and project lead at Murdoch University, Professor Matthew Bellgard, hopes that the project will transform traditional approaches to clinical trials.

“Drug regulators are increasingly encouraging the use of innovative approaches in place of traditional clinical trial designs to expedite the development of new products,” he said.

“Implementation of innovative trial designs requires patient information to be captured, entered, and available for analyses in near real-time. The solution aims to build the digital infrastructure required to realise this vision.”

The project team will concentrate initially on cystic fibrosis and hepatitis C as two exemplar diseases, to evaluate deployment of the digital solution.

You can view the extended Murdoch University media release here.

- ENDS -

---

 

About Telethon Kids Institute

The Telethon Kids Institute is one of the largest, and most successful medical research institutes in Australia, comprising a dedicated and diverse team of more than 500 staff and students.

We've created a bold blueprint that brings together community, researchers, practitioners, policy makers and funders, who share our vision to improve the health and wellbeing of children through excellence in research.

The Institute is headed by leading paediatrician and infectious diseases expert Professor Jonathan Carapetis, with Founding Director Professor Fiona Stanley now Patron.

Telethon Kids is independent and not-for-profit. The majority of funding comes from our success in winning national and international competitive research grants.  We also receive significant philanthropic support from corporate Australia and the community.

About MTPConnect

MTPConnect was formed as an industry-led independent not-for-profit organisation in November 2015 as part of the federal government’s Industry Growth Centres Initiative to accelerate the rate of growth of the MTP sector to achieve greater commercialisation and establish Australia as an Asia-Pacific hub for MTP companies.

The MTPConnect Head Office is located at the New Horizons Building at Monash University, co-located with CSIRO and industry. There are also key hubs at the University of Sydney’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology and the Medical Device Research Institute at Flinders University at Tonsley in Adelaide.

This year, MTPConnect has selected 20 national MTP projects to receive $7.385 million in funding over two years, with proposed matched funding of $15.2 million coming from the sector.

You can view the full list of successful MTPConnect applicants for 2017 here.