To Turn Research into Reality

Eugene Louwrens (L) and Dr Ying Gu with the analyser

Taking research discoveries from the laboratory and licensing them to business and industry for commercial use has become one of the best revenue sources for Australian universities.

A payment of $3 million by UniQuest to The University of Queensland this year highlighted technology commercialisation as an increasingly important revenue source.

David Henderson, Managing Director of UniQuest, UQ's main commercialisation arm, said the funding cemented UniQuest's position among the world's leading university technology commercialisation companies.

He said record revenue of $51.7 million had been achieved in 2002 of which payments and provisions to the University and its staff had exceeded $24 million.

"It is a tribute to UQ's foresight in establishing a technology commercialisation company and properly funding the commercialisation process," Mr Henderson said.

UniQuest this year also established startup company QRxPharma Pty Ltd, to commercialise two technologies being developed, one for the treatment of pain and the other for the control of bleeding.

The combined $10 million investments for the technologies last year is believed to be the largest single amount raised by an Australian university technology transfer company.

UniQuest's work was acknowledged nationally in March with three prestigious commercialisation excellence awards at the Commercialisation Forum and Fair of Ideas in Sydney.

In addition to the funding generated through UniQuest, UQ research is being turned into bankable ideas through biotechnology (IMBcom) and the mining sector (JKTech).

Drawing on the research of UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, (IMB) IMBcom has forged development collaborations with a number of partners in industry and government this year.

An alliance with computing giant IBM will see a world-class bioinformatics hub established at the IMB to create more effective disease treatments.

IMBcom has also incorporated two new start-up companies. Cyclagen, will use gene technology to create new insecticidal proteins for crop protection, and Nephrogenix will commercialise the research of renal regeneration researchers from the IMB, UQ, Monash University, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Royal Canberra Hospital.

JKTech, the commercial arm of UQ's Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC), has also had a successful year, recovering the development costs of its in-demand Mineral Liberation Analyser (MLA) technology.

The MLA combines an electron microscope and innovative software developed by Dr Ying Gu to allow mining operations to identify whether minerals are being effectively separated from ore.

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