MedTech in innovation push throughout Australia
The growing significance of medical technology innovation for business and industry was on show following announcements by several states over the past few weeks.
NSW In NSW the Premier and Deputy Premier on Thursday unveiled a $35million investment for the establishment of the Sydney Startup Hub. With more than 40% of Australia’s start-ups already based in NSW, the new hub on York Street in the Sydney CBD seeks to bolster the technology ecosystem in the state with over 11 floors and the hope of accommodating upwards of 6500 new jobs.
QLD This coincides with an announcement from Queensland where the CSIRO opened a Data61 office in Central Brisbane. Data61 seeks to seed new data-driven business innovations over the coming 15-20 years, including e-health, data for advanced medical technology as well as medical software platforms.
The Queensland Government's flagship $420 million Advance Queensland initiative is also continuing to drive economic growth, create jobs and improve the lives of Queenslanders by backing cutting edge innovation projects.
SA The South Australian Government has witnessed Flinders University sign a MOU with Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to create an international Medical Devices Partnership Program (MDPP). The MDPP-Partnership 2025 aims to build additional research and development partnerships between Singapore and Australia, through the commercialisation of research among agencies, academic institutions and the private sector. MTAA is on the Steering Panel that will drive the direction of this program and the first meeting is on 4 August.
VIC From Melbourne, the Victorian Government released the 2017 State of the Sector Report into the economic impact of the medical technology and pharmaceuticals sector in that state. The Report cites that over 11% of the national MedTech industry is based in Victoria, with noticeable concentrations of innovation, manufacturing and R&D activity in the Melbourne CBD and the Monash University/Clayton precinct. Staff at MTAA member company Grey Innovation feature in the cover of the report.
NT This week, the Central Australia Academic Health Science Centre in Alice Springs was given the official seal of approval by the National Health and Medical Research Council. The Central Australia Academic Health Science Centre is the first Aboriginal-led collaboration to achieve Federal Government recognition for leadership in health research and delivery of evidence-based health care.
