CSL opens global headquarters and R&D centre in Melbourne

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week opened CSL’s new Global Headquarters and Centre for Research and Development (R&D), located in the Melbourne Biomedical Precinct in Parkville.

Part of a $2 billion infrastructure investment program undertaken by CSL in Australia over the past four years, the facility will house more than 850 professionals dedicated to protecting public health and bringing life-saving innovative therapies to those in need. It will also place CSL in close proximity to its many partners, including The University of Melbourne, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.

“Today we stand here proudly as a trailblazing force in innovation, with global scale and Australia as our home and Melbourne as our headquarters,” said Dr Brian McNamee AO, Chairman of CSL. “We own and develop our own IP and we forge collaborations with the brightest minds in academia in Australia and beyond. We see our future completely integrated with the biomedical precincts, and recognise our long-term success is tied to Australia’s excellence in biomedical research and tertiary education.”

The 54,000 m² facility spans nine floors of state-of-the-art laboratories and research and clinical-phase production suites; seven floors of versatile workspace; and two levels dedicated to the Jumar Bioincubator (opening next month), which offers office and laboratory space for up to 40 Australian biotech startups to progress the commercialisation of their research. The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) has bestowed a five-star rating on the building, for design features that represent excellence in environmentally sustainable building practices.

“We hope that with the addition of this world-class facility the scientific and commercial output of the Parkville Biomedical Precinct here in Melbourne can continue to be much more than the sum of its parts,” said Dr Paul McKenzie, CSL’s Managing Director and CEO. “Our aim is to catalyse even more research, more development and ultimately deliver more products that can help people in serious need all over the world.”

The Prime Minister described CSL as “one of Australia’s most essential and successful biotech companies” — having provided medicines, vaccines and other scientific breakthroughs since it was founded in Melbourne back in 1916 — and the new facility as magnificent.

“It’s a lab, a factory, a biotech startup incubator, a multinational business and a piece of Australian history, all in one stunning, state-of-the-art building,” he said.

“One of the lessons of the pandemic was that we need to make more things here, that we need to be more resilient, that we need to value science — and this facility here does just that.

“This building and the people who work here are full of potential, as is this entire precinct.”