Victorian feature: Infrastructure key to biotech success

The need to build Victoria's biotechnology infrastructure base has been recognised through the establishment of the Biotechnology Platform Technology Working Party.

The group, chaired by Prof David de Kretser and expected to report its findings by mid-year, was set up by the government to examine key areas of research and their relevant platforms.

De Kretser, who is also director of the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development, has said a gap the committee had identified was the need for good quality Victorian sources of animals for biomedical research, adding that the group's brief was to build links between having these platforms available and making them available to the biotech industry.

A committee member and research director at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, Assoc Prof David Bowtell, said the lack of enthusiasm for platform technology in Victoria was because it was deemed "boring".

"With all the hardware and logistics involved, it is perceived as fairly boring," Bowtell said.

"But it deserves a fair bit of attention and people need to realise that it is necessary."

Platform technology was typically complex, labour intensive and expensive, he said, but because they were also an enabling technology, lots of people wanted to use them.

This provided a fertile ground for business where the services of the technology could be hired out to biotechnology businesses.

An example of this has been the recent establishment of AgGenomics, a plant DNA company formed from a joint venture between the Department of Natural Resources and Environment's commercial arm - Agriculture Victoria Services -- and listed Melbourne company Genetic Technologies.

The company, based at LaTrobe University, uses DNA sequencing, molecule marking and structural and functional genomics to offer a service that enables plant breeders to identify commercial traits with a view to selective breeding.

Another high-profile example is the synchrotron project which, when completed by 2007, is expected to attract business from research groups across Australia and other parts of the world.

Start-up company IngenKO is built out of a platform technology, established in 2001 as a supplier of gene targeted mice to the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical research industries.

At the Peter Mac, microarray technology is now being offered to outside research groups.

The institute shares a $4.4 million STI grant with LaTrobe University's Plant Biotechnology Centre and the Australian Genome Research Facility with the aim of establishing microarray as a globally competitive platform technology.

Bowtell said platform technologies, which could mean the difference between one research group or another getting a patent first, needed to be thought of as saleable services and a potential businesses.

"The thing is that if access to these technologies is difficult for large institutes like us, it is terrible for start-up companies," he said.

"They need to run light of such expense as capital or infrastructure and while they can enter collaborations, these can be messy and cumbersome in terms of intellectual property.

"So if you can do this well and make access to these technologies easier, you would have a fantastic environment for spin-offs."

Cerylid Biosciences chief executive Jackie Fairley said initiatives like Bio21 and STI grants were useful for some start-ups, there remained a support gap for small to mid-sized companies.

"I believe that's where the government needs to focus more," she said.

"I would like to see a biotech park development not too far from the centre of Melbourne, with reasonably priced accommodation for small and mid-priced companies."

Fairley said that while the government had provided enormous support for infrastructure in the state, a more effective network infrastructure for companies needed to be developed.

This issue is being addressed at Latrobe University where a dedicated biotechnology precinct and incubator is being set up within the expanding Technology Enterprise Centre.

Also on the cards for Victoria is involvement in three of the collaboration on the short-list for the Federal government's Biotechnology Centre of Excellence - including the Neuroscience Centre, Centre for Control of Infectious Diseases and the Centre for Stem Cells and Tissue Repair - as well as the planned National Centre of Advanced Cell Engineering, through which BresaGen and ES Cell International would provide Victorian researchers access to their embryonic stem cell lines.