Australian MedTech industry to help add $18 billion and 28,000 new jobs by 2025

Today the Medical Technology Association of Australia (MTAA) welcomed the blueprint report from CSIRO and MTPConnect which outlines how medical technologies and pharmaceuticals (MTP) could add $18 billion to the Australian economy and about 28,000 new jobs within the next eight years.

Research by MTAA showed the medical technology (MedTech) industry in Australia employs over 19,000 high skill workers, across 500 companies. The majority of which are small to medium enterprises (SME), and is worth over $11 billion in economic contributions – making it a major contributor to Australia’s MTP sector.

Claims of skyrocketing prostheses costs challenged

MTAA CEO Ian Burgess has written an opinion piece on the Prostheses List published in the InDaily, Adelaide's Independent News in response to Nick Xenophon Team Senator Sterling Griff.

"We agree with Senator Stirling Griff that Australians enrolled in private health insurance deserve a fair deal. They deserve good value for money. They deserve access to high quality treatment and to be protected against corrosive out of pocket costs.

The Prostheses List (PL) has delivered this in spades for years, and it is an essential part of the value in private health insurance. We also agree that the system can be improved for Australians now, and into the future."

MedTech Forum: Australian MedTech Innovation - The Clinical Research Landscape

This full day forum will provide an update of ongoing reforms in clinical research, its implementation progress, roadblocks and success seen thus far to inform whether the long term goal of leading the world in clinical trials research is attainable. In addition, sponsors, start-ups companies and clinical researchers will have an opportunity to discuss and share their invaluable experience from years of conducting medical devices clinical trials in Australia.

Speakers include:

• Dr Catherine Bourgeois, Vice President of Field Clinical Affairs, Emerging Markets & ANZ, Abbott
• Anne O’Neill, NSW Health Office for Health and Medical Research
• Dr. Gordon McGurk, Director of Clinical Trials Section, National Health and Medical Research Council
• Prof. Gregg Suaning, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, UNSW
• Prof. Ian Kerridge, Bioethics at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, University of Sydney
• Hugo de Jong, Director R&D, PWC
• Prof. Tony Weiss, Biochemistry & Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Sydney, Scientific Founder of Elastagen
• Melanie Gentgall, CEO Praxis Australia
• Sue MacLeman, CEO MTP Connect
• Simon Windsor, Project Officer, Bellberry
• Ben Wright, Chief Innovation Officer & Head of Investment Strategy, Cicada
• Prof. Robyn Guymer, Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Melbourne
  

This discussion will be facilitated by Falko Thiele, Director Clinical and Regulatory Affair, Biotronik Australia. 

Member rate: $55 Non member rate: $92.

MedTech 2017 Annual Conference

The Value of Medical Technology to a Healthier Australia

Healthy populations are the backbone of a sustainable economy – they are more productive and less expensive for both employers and healthcare systems. Australia’s MedTech Industry is playing a critical role in helping achieve those goals. While we face ongoing reforms we also face disruptive healthcare technologies that will have longer-term consequences.

MedTech 2017 will bring together the brightest and most informed speakers to help you better add value in this complex and changing landscape.

Attend to collaborate with your peers and learn:

• The future needs of the market
• How will technology change you industry
• Sales disruption in healthcare
• Government Reform – what does it mean for the future of your business
• Position your company as a preferred partner for emerging Asian markets
• How to ensure long term sector success
• Innovation – what’s next!
  

SAVE THE DATE 1-2 November 2017 - Registration opens soon!

Bionic Vision Australia delivers significant health and economic benefits to Australia

Bionic Vision Australia, an Australian Government supported research consortium, has today
announced it has secured substantial international investment—$18 million (USD)—into its
commercialisation company, Bionic Vision Technologies, to manufacture a bionic eye implant that will produce outcomes of significant health and economic benefit for the Australian community.

Australian Research Council (ARC) Acting Chief Executive Officer, Ms Leanne Harvey, said that the foreign investment into Bionic Vision Technologies—by Hong Kong based company, China Huarong International Holdings Limited, together with State Path Capital Limited BVI—to join with the existing Australian stakeholders to commercialise the bionic eye implant is an impressive example of the translation of publicly funded research into real world economic and social outcomes.

“The Australian Government, through the ARC’s Research in Bionic Vision Science and Technology Initiative, has provided total funding of $50 million to The University of Melbourne to administer Bionic Vision Australia,” said Ms Harvey.

Find more information on the Australian Research Councils website here

NSW Medical Devices Fund

The Application Guidelines and Form are available on the NSW Health website

The Medical Devices Fund is a competitive technology development and commercialisation program that aims to:

• Provide support to individuals, companies, public & private hospitals, medical research institutes, universities & the medical devices industry, to take local innovation to market. 
• Increase the uptake of NSW medical devices by the health system where they are cost effective and contribute to improved patient outcomes.

More than $35 million has been awarded to 20 outstanding new medical technologies since the Medical Devices Fund began in 2013. In the 2017-2018 financial year the Fund has over $8 million available.
 

Full Applications will close on 29th May 2017

Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund

Minister for Health Jill Hennessy called for applications for the inaugural Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund, with two levels of funding available of up to $100,000 and $500,000.

The fund is part of the Victorian Government’s $20 million plan to ensure Victoria stays a world leader in ground-breaking health and medical research that has the power to change lives.

Applications for Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund close on 14 April 2017.

For more information visit the VIC Health website

Queensland University of Technology Bridge Program

The Bridge Program is an industry led initiative designed to enhance the commercialisation of Australian pharmaceutical research by connecting biotech entrepreneurs and business savvy academics with global industry leaders so they can more successfully bring new medicines to patients.

Launching in June 2017, the program will select 100 participants annually from across Australia to take part in face-to-face and online training in the scientific, legal, financial, clinical, regulatory and reimbursement disciplines that contribute to research translation and the commercialisation of medicines.

Topics to be covered face-to-face and online include:

• Protecting intellectual property
• Structuring biotech financing deals
• Designing clinical trials to shorten regulatory approval processes
• Enhancing reimbursement returns

Expressions of Interest close on 28 April 2017.

Find out more on the Queensland University of Technology website here