Johnson & Johnson encourages innovation in Queensland

Last week saw the official opening of the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Partnering Office @ QUT, an initiative which aims to improve access to global health and medical innovation in Queensland and beyond. The partnering office is located at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at the Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) Kelvin Grove campus.

“This new office provides Johnson & Johnson Innovation with a strong platform to identify and nurture life science research collaborations,” said Kathy Connell, director of New Ventures Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) for Johnson & Johnson Innovation. “It will also facilitate access for academics, entrepreneurs and other early-stage innovators in Queensland and beyond to valuable knowledge exchange, scouting programs and scientific, regulatory and commercialisation expertise from the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies.”

QuickFire Challenge

As part of the opening, the winners of the inaugural Advance Queensland Johnson & Johnson Innovation QuickFire Challenge were announced. The competition was open to any individual, academic, entrepreneur or company from around the world with a novel and transformational human healthcare innovation, though each winner had to commit to undertaking research and development of their innovation in Queensland.

The winners of each category were:

Pharmaceuticals

Taiwan-based Golden Biotechnology Corporation aims to conduct preclinical testing of a chemical compound called antroquinonol. Derived from a mushroom commonly used in Chinese traditional medicine, antroquinonol has the possibility of tackling one of the biggest challenges in treating Alzheimer’s disease — crossing the blood-brain barrier. The company will use its prize money to prepare the groundwork for a pilot study of the compound with early-stage Alzheimer’s patients.

Medical devices

Sydney-based Atomo Diagnostics hopes to develop a prototype device for the early detection of heart damage, which is crucial to saving patients’ lives. The device is based on Atomo Diagnostics’ existing POC technology and will utilise cardiac markers developed by Brisbane-based Anteo Technologies. The proposed technology offers the possibility of providing an easy-to-use, accurate and rapid low-cost diagnostic test.

Consumer health

Using nanotechnology, Melbourne-based Eikonic R&D has identified a chemical compound that targets the class of bacteria responsible for gum disease and tooth decay. The company is hopeful that it can develop a potential preventive topical application that can be applied daily and is easy to use, avoiding the need for complex, costly and invasive conventional procedures.

“For the winners, there is now this excellent opportunity to translate their ideas and research into commercially viable products,” said Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, announcing the $100,000 in funding for each prize winner. “Ultimately, the big winner from this will be patients, if the companies can get what they have to market.”

Research collaborations

The first agreement facilitated by the new partnering office was a research collaboration to be led by QUT’s Professor of Genomics, Matt Brown. The agreement, made between Janssen Biotech (one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson) and QUT, will see the development of a new personalised treatment for the debilitating arthritic condition ankylosing spondylitis and other autoimmune diseases.

“Ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and psoriasis all share in common some major genetic risk factors,” Professor Brown said.

“The collaboration with Janssen Biotech will enable development of new therapies for these conditions, rapidly accelerating our research taking genetic findings back into the clinic leading to better health for our patients.”

Other collaborations in the region facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation include:

• Janssen Biotech entered into a research collaboration with QUT focused on the potential identification of oral cancer through a saliva screen test.
• Janssen Pharmaceuticals entered into a collaboration with Vaxxas to investigate the use of Vaxxas’ Nanopatch technology for vaccine delivery.

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