Janssen Industry Excellence Awards presented at AusBiotech 2013

The Janssen Industry Excellence Awards, held this week during the AusBiotech 2013 national conference in Brisbane, every year recognise outstanding commercialisation of innovative healthcare solutions by Australian biotechnology and healthcare companies.  

The 2013 Company of the Year award was presented to Nanosonics, a company which develops and manufactures products for the infection control market. Its first product, the trophon EPR, is an automatic device which uses hydrogen peroxide to decontaminate ultrasound probes, replacing the current practice of manual disinfection by toxic chemicals. Nanosonics CEO Michael Kavanagh said that as well as delivering high-level disinfection, the product does so “in a more cost-effective, safe and environmentally friendly way”.

Cervical cancer vaccine pioneer Professor Ian Frazer was awarded the 2013 Industry Leadership Award, which recognises an ongoing and very significant contribution to the life sciences industry. Professor Frazer is now a director of biotechnology start-up company Coridon, which is developing DNA vaccines, as well as CEO and director of Brisbane’s new Translational Research Institute (TRI), which was opened in October.

Allied Healthcare Group, which is one of the key financial backers for Coridon, was awarded Emerging Company of the Year. Allied is in the process of commercialising its innovative tissue engineering technology ADAPT for regenerative medicine and its share price has more than doubled in the past 12 months.

The award committee, comprising members of Janssen and industry body AusBiotech, measured nominees against a series of criteria demonstrating significant achievements in the past 12 months. These include new business deals, product pipeline, intellectual property, company strategy and revenue.

The managing director of Janssen-Cilag, Chris Hourigan, said, “All the winners of this year’s awards have demonstrated an unswerving commitment to innovation in healthcare and represent the spirit of collaboration and commercial savvy required to be successful in this space.”