Building a bioeconomy

It’s big business. When the three-day AusBiotech08 conference opened in Melbourne on October 27, 2008, it attracted over 1400 delegates.

They included a Kiwi contingent of 13 companies: there to present their capabilities, and network with international scientific colleagues and investors.

In his opening address, CSIRO deputy chief executive Dr Alastair Robertson described the bioeconomy as one of the oldest economic sectors known to humanity.

“The life sciences and biotechnology are transferring it into one of the newest,” he said.

The bioeconomy includes scientific contributions to improving agriculture and health. It also encompasses the latest solutions for alternative energy and carbon reduction.

In Australia, for example, one health objective is to “increase the healthy and productive years of us all; not necessarily increase lifespan”.

Australian researchers studying Alzheimer’s disease are aiming to find a way to diagnose and treat it earlier.

Robertson says the process is not classic biotechnology, “but an interface of a number of different sciences”.

The aquaculture business is also under scrutiny in Australia as part of a plan to lift food production.

Globally, aquaculture is growing by nine percent each year. Prawn farming in China, though, is being constrained by lack of available fish meal.

Australian scientists have developed a feed product that uses industrial waste from cereal processing.  When fed to an elite breed of prawn, it boosts prawn growth by up to 34 percent.

Roberston said the process had brought in new players from existing industries.

It goes beyond biotechnology and illustrates that the bioeconomy has a wide scope and an opportunity to be “truly transformational in agriculture as land and carbon use is constrained”.

Partnerships

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) and industry organisation NZBIO supported the New Zealand contingent at AusBiotech08.

NZTE biotech sector director, Chris Boalch, notes that New Zealand’s traditional strengths in agricultural biotechnology complement Australian expertise.

New Zealand is also pressing ahead with work in the drug and biopharmaceuticals areas, he says.

Trans-Tasman partnerships in the past four years have centred around therapeutics and biopharmaceuticals.

Such link-ups can tap into support from the Australia New Zealand Biotechnology Partnership Fund, which is administered by NZTE.

NZTE is now considering whether to open up this fund in other parts of the world.

At the biotech industry’s main international event – Bio2008 in San Diego in June – 42 New Zealand companies secured contracts worth over $14 million. That’s double the value gained at Bio2007.

A further potential $120 million worth of contracts is still being explored.

The value of contracts from AusBiotech08 is not yet known.

New Zealand biotech companies can access help in several ways:

They can tap into a number of programmes through NZTE.

Companies may also be able to access an A$30 million investment fund.

This money is set aside to help early-stage commercialisation of IP developed at The University of Auckland and four Australian universities: Monash, the University of Adelaide, Flinders and the University of South Australia.

NZTE is working with the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology to see how both agencies can better support New Zealand biopharmaceutical companies.

NZTE is also a $1 million partner over five years in the Trans Tasman Commercialisation Fund, launched in June 2008.