Grain Biotech walks with the giants in international tech awards

An Australian agbiotech company has been named as a finalist in this year's World Technology Awards for its excellence in wheat transformation.

Perth-based wheat breeding company Grain Biotech Australia was one of five finalists in the Corporate - Biotechnology category and joins US biotech giants Celera Genomics, Genencor International, Geron Corporation and Invitrogen.

The winner of the category, announced on Monday night at the World Technology Summit in New York, was Genencor International.

The UK-based World Technology Network is an organisation that aims to bring together individuals and corporations from twenty technology related disciplines to share thoughts and knowledge, and build relationships.

It has a membership of 450 scientists, entrepreneurs, financiers, journalists, academics, and policymakers from 34 countries, which includes previous nominators, finalists and winners. Each year the members vote on a list of nominations selected by 100 prominent authorities chosen from across the twenty technology related fields.

"To be selected as a finalist of a World Technology Award, is to be recognized by your peers as being amongst the very few leading innovators in your field whose work is having a genuine and substantial impact on the world in which we live," said the World Technology Network's chairman and founder, James Clark. As a finalist, Grain Biotech will receive membership in the Network for the next year.

CEO Ian Edwards said it had come as "quite a surprise" to be named as a finalist in the awards.

He explained that the company had been nominated earlier this year and sent in a 600-word abstract to the World Technology Network in support of their nomination. But he said he had no idea who might have nominated the company as a contender. "To be honest, it makes me curious," he said.

Grain Biotech is a small start-up company that uses transformation methods to develop new transgenic strains of wheat. The company has already had success in developing a barley yellow dwarf virus resistant strain, as well as a nutraceutical product with antioxidant properties.

It is are also working on a salt-tolerant variety, which Edwards believes could have a major impact on Australian agriculture.

Raising the profile

Edwards said that he hoped the recognition as an award finalist would raise the profile of Grain Biotech both in Australia and overseas.

"We hope it will attract venture capital, quite honestly," he said. While Grain Biotech was the recipient of one of the Federal government's first Biotechnology Innovation Fund grants, it is now looking for new partners.

"The biggest thing for us is that we have a team of very good scientists working very hard and it means something for them, especially given the tough time agricultural biotech has been having recently," said Edwards.

With uncertainty surrounding plans by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator to recover its costs, Grain Biotech is probably going to market its first two products in the US, said Edwards. But the third product in the pipeline, a salt-resistant strain of wheat, will be developed for the Australian market.

"We'll make a stand on the salt-tolerance product in Australia as we believe it is so important," he explained.

He said that small agbiotech companies like Grain Biotech would be severely impacted by an OGTR full cost recovery scheme, as they would not be able to afford to do the necessary field trials in Australia.