[Music starts. The opening title page shows a blue panel with the Australian Government, Department of Industry, Science and Resources and Department of Health and Aged Care crest and logos appear in stack format. The panel also shows the video title and subtitle: PolyActiva Brandon Capital, Venture Capital Case Study Series.]
[An image of a man wearing a white lab coat and safety glasses standing in front of lab equipment appears on screen. The camera pans across the room to Vanessa Waddell and 3 colleagues who are talking while standing in front of another piece of equipment. All 4 people are wearing white lab coats and safety glasses.]
Vanessa Waddell: We're here today at PolyActiva laboratories based in Crown Street in Richmond.
[An image appears on screen showing Vanessa seated in a laboratory and speaking to the camera. Her full name, company position and company name appear on the screen: Vanessa Waddell, Chief Executive Officer, PolyActiva.]
Vanessa Waddell: We're developing ocular implants for sustained drug delivery to the eye. So currently patients who have conditions like glaucoma have to put drops in their eye every day. What we're looking to do is to replace that drop therapy with a small ocular implant that goes inside the eye. I guess Brandon Capital's been an integral part of our story, so we were one of their earliest investments in 2012.
[An image appears on screen showing 2 people talking as they walk down an office hallway. The image changes to a man sitting behind a desk and speaking to the camera. His full name, company positions and company names appear on screen: Chris Nave, Founding Partner of Brandon Capital, and Chief Executive Officer of Brandon BioCatalyst.]
Chris Nave: They came to us with the concept of creating a film that they would coat prosthetics with, but we were able to show them that, that to actually develop a product like that would be impossible.
[An image appears on screen with Chris working at a computer. His image is seen through a window into his office. Chris is speaking in the background. Then the image changes to Chris speaking to the camera.]
Chris Nave: And so we worked with them to say that your technology looks really interesting, where is there in, in medicine gaps where the delivery of drugs is a real challenge?
[An image appears on screen showing a laboratory, panning from a power point outlet, past laboratory equipment and to a man placing items on a shelf. The man is wearing a white lab coat and safety glasses. Vanessa is speaking in the background. The image on screen changes to Vanessa sitting in a laboratory setting and speaking to the camera.]
Vanessa Waddell: And then in around late 2012, the company received its initial investment and started to focus on the development of sustained drug delivery for more discrete parts of the human body, such as the eye.
[An image of a graphics tablet and a hand holding a stylus appears on screen. The tablet has an anatomical diagram of an eye and handwritten notes on it. Vanessa is speaking in the background. The image pans from the tablet, across a meeting table to Vanessa and another woman sitting. Then the image changes to a group of 4 people sitting at an office table. 3 people are looking at a large screen on the wall. The screen shows an animation showing placement of the device in eye. The one other person, a woman, is writing notes in her notebook.]
Vanessa Waddell: So what PolyActiva’s drug is doing is being delivered internally in the eye and going straight to the target tissues.
[An image of the Brandon BioCatalyst logo on a wall appears on screen. The camera pans left to an office window and looks through. Chris is sitting at a desk with 2other people facing away from the camera. Chris is speaking in the background. The image changes to Chris sitting at a desk and talking to someone off screen. Vanessa starts to speak in the background.]
Chris Nave: We were excited that maybe it would work. But, you know, if you asked me back then I probably would have said ‘yeah look I think we have a 10% chance of succeeding’. And that's the space we play in.
Vanessa Waddell: So they initially seeded the company with a Series A investment round.
[The image on screen changes to Vanessa sitting in a laboratory setting and speaking to the camera.]
Vanessa Waddell: That money allowed PolyActiva to develop its products to proof of concept, to get the preclinical data that it needed. And then in 2018, the Biomedical Translation Fund invested in our first clinical trial program.
[An image appears on screen showing Chris sitting at a desk and speaking to the camera.]
Chris Nave: We really felt that it was a program that was tailored appropriately for biotech and I think that the moment we found out about it, we started working pretty hard on making sure we were ready for when the program was launched that we put our best foot forward to compete for the funding.
[An image appears on screen showing the Brandon BioCatalyst sign on a wall. Vanessa is speaking in the background. The image changes to Vanessa sitting in a laboratory speaking to the camera.]
Vanessa Waddell: We wouldn't have been able to develop our product without the support of that venture capital and in particular Brandon Capital.
[An image appears on screen showing Vanessa and a male colleague standing in a laboratory. Vanessa is holding a small piece of equipment and discussing it with her colleague. Both people are wearing white lab coats. Chris starts speaking in the background.]
Chris Nave: Biomed is a difficult sector to invest in because everything takes a long time.
[An image appears on screen showing Chris sitting at a desk and speaking to the camera.]
Chris Nave: In tech you can develop a product, an app, or a device, and quite quickly get it to the consumer. Whereas within biotech if you're developing a new drug, generally you're looking at least 10 years from the moment you'd start the company through until when that drug would be late stage clinical development.
[An image appears on screen showing Vanessa sitting in a laboratory speaking to the camera.]
Vanessa Waddell: PolyActiva has been fortunate in that it hasn't, you know, entered the ‘Valley of Death’. It's... but there is always then a gap. And I guess the challenge for us is as we move forward, how we fund what is going to be a fairly significant expenditure for phase 2 and potentially phase 3 clinical trials.
[An image appears showing Chris sitting at a desk and typing on his computer. The image changes to Chris speak to the camera directly.]
Chris Nave: So before the BTF, there weren't really many venture funds in Australian biotech space that had the capacity to take an Australian idea from the laboratory through to human testing, and the BTF enabled us to do that.
[An image appears on screen showing Chris and 2 colleagues talking in an office. Chris is standing near a wall which displays the Brandon BioCatalyst logo. His 2 colleagues are seated on a couch. Chris is speaking in the background.]
Chris Nave: The venture industry is absolutely essential to both stimulate innovation in biotech, but also to help create industry.
[An image appears on screen showing Vanessa talking to 3 colleagues. Two other people are standing in the background. Everyone is wearing white lab coats. Vanessa hands the small piece of equipment she was holding to a male colleague. Vanessa turns and walks towards the camera. Vanessa stands in front of the camera smiling. Her colleagues continue talking to each other.
Chris continues speaking in the background.]
Chris Nave: And if you look at any data across the developed world, not just in biotech, but across the globe, those ecosystems with strong venture capital firms are the ones that have the greatest job growth. They're the ones that create the new companies and have emerging industries.
[Video ends with a final blue panel showing the Australian Government, Department of Industry, Science and Resources and Department of Health and Aged Care crest and logos in stack format as before, but with the following text:
The Australian Government Department of Industry, Science and Resources is delivering the Biomedical Translation Fund on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.
This URL also appears: business.gov.au/grants-and-programs/venture-capital]
