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Growth Centre: MTPConnect

Case study from: Growth Centres Success Stories

Australia has clear potential to become a global leader in the biomedical health space – with the help of the Industry Growth Centres Initiative, the Accelerating Australia program is galvanising that position.

Business in focus: Accelerating Australia

Developing biomedical advances and innovation from early development stages to the commercialisation phase is no easy feat. However, Accelerating Australia found that a shift in existing academic culture needed to happen, starting with the researchers themselves.

A key objective of the Industry Growth Centres Initiative is to improve workforce skills and enhance commercialisation. The Accelerating Australia program trains multidisciplinary teams of researchers, engineers, clinicians and business people to meet current and future biomedical market needs, and empowers academics to take on a more entrepreneurial mindset.

Working closely with the Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals Growth Centre, MTPConnect, enabled the program to bring together key players in the sector, from top universities, research organisations, biotech companies and healthcare providers across Australia, to collaboratively drive greater commercialisation success nationwide.

In parallel with the training, the team have developed national processes to apply a 2017 MTPConnect project grant to expand the Accelerating Australia program nationally involving more than 20 organisations.

The program continues to produce successful results, with over 160 participants trained across four courses.

Through the initiative, MTPConnect is also supporting researchers to develop the skills to commercialise their own findings.

Accelerating Australia is just one of many programs engaged with the Industry Growth Centres Initiative across the six sectors.

“Accelerating Australia is a consortium that brings together organisations aiming to boost biomedical innovation to create patient benefits. So far we have provided over 160 budding entrepreneurs with support to invent, design and develop exciting new biomedical technologies with solid business cases that can improve the patient experience and save lives. And that is just in one year!”

– Maud Eijkenboom, Accelerating Australia’s Executive Officer