Australian biotechs showcased at investment summit
Wednesday, 19 October, 2011
Australia’s life sciences sector is one of the best performing in the world, with tremendous opportunity for investment. This is the message being delivered to investors from around the world at the AusBiotech Australasian Life Sciences Investment Summit being held today in Adelaide.
Fourty of Australia’s top biotechnology companies are showcasing their technology to a cadre of national and international investors, including angel investors, venture capitalists, fund managers, investment bankers and representatives from superannuation funds.
The audience also includes venture capital arms of the major pharmaceutical companies from Australia, Asia Pacific, North America and Europe looking to bolster their challenged product pipelines.
Presenting companies will be a mix of listed late-stage development, private companies with identified product opportunities and companies in early-stage commercialisation spun out from research institutes and universities, including companies such as QRxPharma, Acrux and Bionomics.
“This event is a great opportunity for Australian life science companies to meet with investors that have a genuine interest in the sector, and as always good projects will find funding – this is an opportunity to match investors with good quality projects,” said Scott Power, a technology and healthcare analyst with RBS Morgans, which is sponsoring the Summit.
The Australian biotech sector has outperformed the ASX 300 consistently since 2009 and now Australia has the largest listed biotechnology sector as a proportion of GDP in the world.
“If there were an Olympic Games for biotechnology, Australia would be in the medals,” said Dr Anna Lavelle, CEO of AusBiotech. “And this is, quite rightly, attracting increasing attention from investors globally.
“Even in the face of the global financial crisis, continuing volatility and such a small population, Australia has a biotechnology sector that is a maturing, fast-growing sector that was recently ranked number five globally by Scientific American’s World View.”
The event is part of the AusBiotech 2011 conference, held in Adelaide October 16-19.
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