“In South Australia, clinical trials are approved in an average of just six weeks”

What is Health Industries South Australia?

Health Industries South Australia is a government agency, acting as a single point of contact for health and life sciences companies investing in Adelaide. It is staffed by business professionals, allowing the agency to understand what companies need and provide advice on government regulations, help accessing land and introductions to the local life sciences community, including industry, academic and government. The agency's industry experts have also worked extensively within government to modernize policies to make them more business-friendly.

What is the South Australian Government's life sciences strategy?

Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, has been at the heart of Australia's manufacturing base for decades. Now that the economy is evolving, the government is helping the city transition to hi-tech, high value jobs.
The government's plan to grow the life sciences and leverage this hi-tech know-how has three components: building a cluster of world-class life sciences infrastructure-Adelaide BioMed City; developing policies to deliver practical assistance to companies; and creating a government agency dedicated to helping life sciences companies establish in Adelaide-Health Industries South Australia.

What is Adelaide BioMed City?

 

Adelaide BioMed City is a $3.6 billion cluster of life sciences infrastructure being built in the heart of Adelaide. It brings together institutions from research, development, and clinical care right through to business development. The centerpiece is the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

What are the advantages of conducting clinical trials in Adelaide?

Forty-five per cent of research and development costs will be reimbursed in cash to eligible companies with an aggregated annual turnover of less than A$20 million (approx. US$15 million). This incentive covers costs such as clinical trials, analytics, study drug manufacture and related services, and covers all phases of development, i.e. preclinical and phases 1, 2 and 3.
No Investigational New Drug filing is required, meaning clinical trials are approved in an average of just six weeks.
Adelaide has one of the largest and most experienced Phase 1 clinical trials units in Australia. This 50-bed unit recently moved into a new purpose-built facility at Adelaide BioMed City. Adelaide also has a world-class preclinical research center and facilities for Phase 2 and 3 trials, making the city a one-stop shop for faster and cheaper clinical trials.

How can Adelaide help companies interested in medtech manufacturing and distribution in the Asia-Pacific market?

Adelaide is leveraging its decades of world-class experience in automotive manufacturing and successfully applying this supply chain to medical device manufacturing.

With established domestic and international logistics for hi-tech goods, companies based in Adelaide can serve the national market and easily distribute throughout the rapidly growing Asia- Pacific markets.

Adelaide's time zone is within two hours of Beijing, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and has direct flights to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Auckland, Doha and Singapore.

How can the South Australian Government's progressive policy on hospital record access help with companies' research?

The state government is making 14 million hospital patient records available to companies for research in an anonymized form. This dataset includes 9 million in-patient records collected over 15 years and 5 million emergency presentations collected over 10 years.

What are the advantages of nutraceutical production in Adelaide?

South Australia has a clean, green GM-free environment. Producers in South Australia can market their products under 'Made in Australia' branding, taking advantage of the premium people will pay for high-quality Australian-grown products. Adelaide has wide experience in agricultural R&D, cultivation, extraction, production and marketing.

How do signing business development agreements with clusters, such as Europe's bioXcluters Plus, help cities like Adelaide?

These agreements help fast-track business results for companies and solve a common problem for small-to-medium enterprises - landing in new markets. It does this by: raising awareness about business opportunities in each other's regions; providing government support to foster relationships between business, research, education and clinical care organizations; and helping companies new to a region navigate local regulatory frameworks and make connections in the local business community.

Pfizer recently invested $21 million in their Adelaide facility. How did the government help?

Pfizer Adelaide invested $21 million to expand and upgrade their biologic facility, allowing for commercial production. Health Industries South Australia helped Pfizer secure a lease on government land and provided negotiation support in dealing with regulatory obligations, allowing Pfizer's expansion to proceed smoothly.

Could you describe the details of the collaboration with AstraZeneca?

In return for first rights for AstraZeneca to commercialize any discovery that university researchers make, the University of Adelaide will have access to 50 of AstraZeneca's compounds in several therapy areas, such as cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory, oncology, autoimmune and infection, and neuroscience diseases.

What is the idea behind setting-up a Health Business office in China? Do you intend to open such offices in other APAC countries? If Yes! What is the reason for choosing that country?

Health Industries South Australia's health business office in Suzhou Industrial Park will give Chinese companies exposure to Adelaide's life sciences ecosystem, especially the benefits of conducting clinical trials in Adelaide and what an ideal location South Australia is for the production of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Direct presence in important markets helps our investment attraction mission. We have a direct presence in Europe, the US and now China. We can't exclude establishing in other major markets such as India.

As part of your strategies do you have a Startup Incubation plan?

Health Industries South Australia's sister agency, BioSA, provides business development services to life science companies located in Adelaide. This includes running two business incubator buildings, containing over 60 hi-tech companies, with many in the life sciences sector.

Could you outline the roadmap for the next 5 years?

Adelaide will position itself between major life sciences cities. It will leverage its world-class research and therapeutic infrastructure to develop the business aspect of its life sciences ecosystem.

Analysts, in recent years, have observed that Africa is a potential market for pharmaceutical business. Does South Australia have any plans to collaborate with African pharma/Life Sciences Company to further business opportunities?

We already have connections with South African organizations. The importance of the growing African market has been somewhat neglected by industry growth strategies. We are expecting to increase our collaborations in Africa.

Is there any one particular unique technology developed by a South Australian life sciences company that has the potential to disrupt healthcare business?

Adelaide is Australia's innovation city. One company which stands out in the medical device sector is Micro-X, which has developed a small, mobile x-ray unit based on carbon nanotube technology. Leveraging Adelaide's automotive manufacturing supply chain, they are building in Adelaide and distributing to the world.