Queensland and India form bioscience alliance

Life Sciences Queensland (LSQ) has formed a partnership with India’s Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), enabling Queensland organisations to access innovation and collaboration opportunities in India’s US$12 billion biotechnology sector.

Announced at the BioAsia 2020 conference, held in India in February, the ABLE-LSQ Collaborative Alliance will see the two industry associations promote, develop and grow the bioscience sector across the Australian and pan-India regions for the next five years. With specific focus on biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, clinical trials, start-ups and the international bioeconomy, the alliance will act as a nexus for innovation, investment opportunity and collaboration.

LSQ Chief Executive Officer Clare Blain said the alliance is an important initiative that will help shape the future of the life sciences industry in Queensland and beyond.

“This memorandum of understanding [MoU] with ABLE is not only a testament of mutual recognition of each other’s strengths in life sciences — it will create increased opportunities for our organisations to use our existing networks, resources and expertise, and share agendas to form new collaborations and help diversify and strengthen the biosciences industry on an international scale,” she said.

As part of the collaboration, Queensland organisations stand to benefit from synergies in the life sciences ecosystem, including regular roundtable meetings with key Indian industry stakeholders, reciprocal delegate exchange and a start-up exchange program providing budding Queensland bioscience organisations the opportunity to accelerate their growth on a global scale. The initiative will also open new doors for Indian companies to explore research and industry collaborations in Queensland.

ABLE Chairperson Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said this type of international partnership is vital for industry growth.

“This is the way forward in collaboration between innovative companies in Queensland and India, to co-create many exciting products and solutions in biotechnology that will tackle the challenging healthcare needs of our communities,” she said. “While an MoU is the first step, the real task is to make it a reality quickly with meaningful collaborative projects from both sides.”

Trade and Investment Queensland Commissioner Gitesh Agarwal added, “As India and Australia come closer than ever before, the time is right to find real solutions for real problems. Queensland is poised to be an ideal partner for India to collaborate and co-create with.”

The ABLE-LSQ Collaborative Alliance was formally established with the signing of an MoU at the BioAsia 2020 conference, followed by an interactive session for members to address initial Indo-Australian collaboration opportunities to kick off the five-year partnership.

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