Model for success

Professor Ian Frazer

UQ’s long-standing national reputation as a leader in the ethical and effective commercialisation of world-changing research has been further enhanced during a truly remarkable 12 months.

UQ’s world-class commercialisation model continues to bring innovative and unique research to the world.

Most notable is the world’s first cervical cancer vaccine, which is now available to women in Australia and the United States.  It will be a lifesaver. Cervical cancer kills about 270,000 women worldwide each year.

Technology developed by Australian of the Year Professor Ian Frazer, the late Dr Jian Zhou and their team from UQ’s Centre for Immunology and Cancer Research helped create the preventative vaccine.  In the mid 1990s, major agreements were signed involving UniQuest Pty Ltd, the University’s technology transfer company; Melbourne-based pharmaceutical manufacturer CSL Limited; and the vaccine division of US drugmaker Merck and Co, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. 

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration and America’s Food and Drug Administration have approved the vaccine, Gardasil, for use in girls and women aged nine to 26. The vaccine protects against four of the dozens of strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which cause genital warts as well as cervical cancer.

To coincide with the vaccine’s release in Australia on August 28, the Queensland Government announced the new Jian Zhou Senior Smart State Fellowship, named in honour of Professor Frazer’s late research partner.

Another UniQuest commercialisation success was funding from a consortium for XeroCoat Pty Ltd’s innovative anti-fogging and anti-reflective coating technology. Backed by Uniseed, inQbator, Allen and Buckeridge and teQstart Investment Fund, the company now has funding for the next 12 months, according to Chief Executive Stephan McRae.

XeroCoat’s coating technology, developed by Dr Michael Harvey and Dr Paul Meredith, can be applied to prevent the fogging of consumer products such as reading and sunglasses; sporting eyewear such as swimming goggles; or flat glass products such as mirrors and windscreens.

UniQuest also commercialised another world-first technology that was developed by Professor Anton Middelberg and Dr Annette Dexter from UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. Known as Pepfactants®, the peptide technology can control the emulsions and foams used in a wide range of industry processes and could impact on a range of products from petroleum to specialty chemicals and therapeutic drugs. (See Small miracles)

Australian drug development company Alchemia Limited is set to begin a collaborative research project with UQ’s preclinical drug development service provider, TetraQ, to develop a new generation of opioid-based painkillers to treat severe pain. TetraQ has also announced a strategic alliance with vivoPharm to broaden preclinical drug development services.  TetraQ contributes its specialised testing of drugs for pain and central nervous system disorders, while vivoPharm’s strength lies in testing cancer drugs.

UQ’s Centre for Integrated Preclinical Drug Development and TetraQ also hope to become world leaders in preclinical drug development technologies through a $1.73 million project that will help bring medicines to market more quickly.

With industry partners vivoPharm Pty Ltd, Industrial Research Limited and Ground Zero Pharmaceuticals, the project will develop “new tools” for a drug development toolkit.

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research (CILR) has lodged a complete patent application for new compounds with properties that might assist in the treatment of cancer.  CILR researchers have identified a number of compounds which could prevent the formation of a blood supply to tumours.

The CILR formed a commercialisation business, Meristomics, last October to commercialise plant research discoveries.  CILR’s partner universities (UQ, Australian National University, University of Newcastle and University of Melbourne) passed on their commercialisation rights to UniQuest.

A revolutionary reading program developed by Dr Carol Christensen, a senior lecturer in UQ’s School of Education and a leading literacy expert, is to become available Australia-wide.  Based on extensive research data, the Reading LINK-Decoding Program is designed to teach anyone to read, including children with disorders such as dyslexia.  The program has been published by Knowledge Books and Software, who have licensed the publishing rights through UniQuest.

Brisbane-based Adipogen Pty Ltd has raised a further $2.25 million to help develop a novel treatment for obesity. The investment was led by the Queensland Biocapital Funds and supported by Uniseed, one of the company’s original investors. The company has identified a growth factor responsible for the formation of fat-storing cells, and Adipogen’s initial studies have shown that drugs which inhibit the factor can be used to treat obesity.

New technology with the potential to usher in the hydrogen economy won the Queensland Government ISUS award and the $100,000 UQ Business School Enterprize competition.  Startup company Hydrexia Pty Ltd beat seven Enterprize competition finalists to win $100,000 in seed funding.  The Hydrexia technology uses a solid-state hydrogen storage method based on an innovative magnesium alloy that is manufactured using low cost casting techniques.

JKTech, the commercialisation arm of UQ’s Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre, has achieved a world-first by selling mineral analysis technology to the booming Chinese market. JKTech Pty Ltd has exported a mineral liberation analyser to Jinchuan Group Ltd, China’s largest producer of nickel, cobalt and platinum. JK Tech Managing Director, Dr Geoff Gault, said the instrument and software package would be a centerpiece of a Minerals Engineering Research Institute established by Jinchuan.

Some of Australia’s leading scientists believe milk may produce valuable new products with nutriceutical, pharmaceutical and agrochemical potential.  UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and the Sydney-based Australian R&D company, Microbial Screening Technologies (MST) have joined with MG Nutritionals, a subsidiary of Murray Goulburn Cooperative Co Ltd, in the search for unique biologically active compounds in milk. 

Chief executive of IMBcom Pty Ltd, the IMB’s commercialisation company, Dr Peter Isdale, said the research agreement to harness the bioactives of milk would be a major step forward in Australian biodiscovery.

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