Global pandemic therapeutics centre announced for Melbourne

The establishment of the Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics, designed to create a second shield to protect humanity from future pandemics, was announced today by The University of Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, located in Melbourne’s biomedical precinct.

The centre is being made possible by the generosity of international businessman and philanthropist Geoffrey Cumming, a Canadian and New Zealand citizen who lives in Melbourne. Cumming has donated $250 million to The University of Melbourne to establish the new Cumming Global Centre within the Doherty Institute; this is believed to be the largest philanthropic donation to medical research, and one of the largest gifts, in Australia’s history. The Victorian Government has also contributed significantly to the new centre, initially committing $75 million in funding in recognition of the critical need to advance the science behind therapeutics.

The centre will address the critical need to prepare for future pandemics, enabling the rapid design and testing of new therapeutics, and their delivery to the community within months of a pandemic outbreak. The development of new treatments has the potential to transform how the next outbreak is managed, but progress has traditionally lagged when compared to vaccines. Experience from pandemics including COVID-19 has shown that therapeutics are critically important in preventing the progression of infections to severe disease, and ultimately in saving lives.

The centre will be established in the new $650 million Australian Institute for Infectious Disease, a partnership between The University of Melbourne, the Doherty Institute and the Burnet Institute, co-funded by the Victorian Government as the major supporting partner. Initial scoping suggests the centre will create at least 200 long-term, high-purpose knowledge jobs and build upon the growing international reputation of the Melbourne medical precinct.

“The Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics is expected to deliver huge benefits for Australia, attracting global talent focused on breakthrough research in the development of treatments that aim to reduce the progression of diseases and ultimately save lives,” said University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell.

“The centre will pursue an ambitious research program focusing on treatments that can be rapidly adapted after a new virus is identified. The first COVID-19 vaccine was approved in July 2020. If a therapeutic drug had been available at scale in July 2020, in line with COVID-19 vaccine approval, it could have prevented millions of deaths globally.”

“This new global medical research centre is conceived as a long-term initiative to provide greater protection for global society against future pandemics,” Cumming added. “It will attract top researchers and scientists from Australia and around the world, on long-term contracts, in a collaborative medical research effort which is designed to enhance global resiliency.

“The scale and enduring nature of medical research investment by successive Victorian Governments, the breadth of the talent pool in the ecosystem of the medical research precinct in Melbourne [and] the collegiality of all the players, together with the success of Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic, were key reasons for locating the centre in Melbourne.

“Our objective is to be a globally top pandemic therapeutic research centre. We aim to create solutions to minimise the impact of future pandemics and thereby create greater societal resiliency internationally in the decades ahead.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Jonathon Marthick-Hone

Please follow us and share on Twitter and Facebook. You can also subscribe for FREE to our weekly newsletters and bimonthly magazine.