Finalists announced for 2015 KCA Research Commercialisation Awards


Friday, 14 August, 2015

Five finalists in the 2015 Research Commercialisation Awards, presented by Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia (KCA), have been announced.

The awards recognise research organisations’ successes in creatively transferring knowledge to the broader community and research into products or services where companies grow new industries in Australia. They will be presented this year across two categories: Best Commercial Deal and Best Creative Engagement Strategy.

Best Commercial Deal

The Australian Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) has been recognised for the development of RemLife — a software package used to predict and assess damage caused by operation and cycling of conventional and nuclear power plant assets. It was acquired by ALS Global in 2015, with ANSTO retaining commercial rights in the nuclear asset field of use.

Swinburne University of Technology was nominated for a breakthrough in data storage technology which increased the capacity of a DVD from 4.7 GB to 1000 TB. In 2014, start-up company Optical Archive licensed this technology. In May 2015, Sony Corporation of America purchased the start-up, with knowledge of it not having any public customers or a final product in the market.

Fibrotech Therapeutics, a University of Melbourne start-up, has been noted for its development of drugs to treat scarring, which is prevalent in chronic conditions like diabetic kidney disease. The company was purchased in 2014 by Shire for US$75 million upfront and up to US$472 million in contingent payments. Shire is now progressing Fibrotech’s lead drug candidate through to clinical trials for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis.

Best Creative Engagement Strategy

Defence Science Partnerships — a partnering framework between the Defence Science and Technology Group of the Department of Defence and more than 65% of Australian universities — has been recognised for reducing transaction times from months to weeks. The framework includes standard agreement templates for collaborative research, sharing of infrastructure, scholarships and staff exchanges, simplified IP regimes and a common framework for costing research.

Knowledge Unlatched, driven by Curtin University researchers, was meanwhile nominated for giving libraries cost-effective and diverse access to open-access licence books. The online platform has created a community for publishers and libraries to connect by playing on the power of quantity to reduce publishing costs; a book only goes to print when a minimum number of libraries make a request.

The awards will be judged by commercial leaders of innovation: Chris Farquhar, founding partner of Aureae Portae; Topaz Conway, Accelerating Commercialisation; Erol Harvey, CEO, MiniFab; and Susan Oliver, chair of Scale Investors. They will be presented at the KCA 2015 Annual Conference ‘Raising the Bar’ on 10 September in Melbourne.

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