Building Australia's biotech future

The biotech sector is booming. The global biotechnology market is now worth more than $US 1 trillion, with advances in AI, genetic engineering and advanced therapies fuelling the sector’s growth.

Australian researchers are already at the forefront of biotech innovation, particularly in oncology and vaccine development, but the global market is increasingly competitive and Australia hasn’t yet given the sector the unified policy focus it needs. 

While there is strong government support for the sector and Australia lists biotech as a critical technology, we need a more focused approach to drive it forward. Building stronger biotech capability is something government and industry need to prioritise, not just to grow our economy, but to allow us to produce essential medicines and respond to future health emergencies. 

The biotech industry descended on Boston this month for BIO 2025, and countries that are treating biotech as a strategic priority could be poised to forge ahead. Australia needs to give the sector the same singular, coordinated attention we apply to mining and agriculture – or risk being left behind. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently announced an economic roundtable for August as part of the Government’s growth and productivity agenda. This is a perfect opportunity to put biotechnology on the national reform agenda and ensure it’s recognised as a sector that’s central to our future prosperity and resilience.

Building Australia’s biotech sovereign capabilities

There’s been long-term recognition of the importance of sovereign capabilities through programs like the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), which helps move ideas out of the lab and toward clinical translation. But NCRIS has long been funded at a ‘steady as she goes’ level and there has been limited outflows from the National Reconstruction Fund (NRF) into the sector to have an impact. Now is the time to supercharge it. 

The COVID-19 pandemic showed how exposed we are, when only one company in the country that could manufacture vaccines at scale.

We know the ability to manufacture our own medicines can be a huge advantage, yet we continue to see exits from multinational pharma in terms of manufacturing. There have also been very limited efforts to attract pharma manufacturing, with the exceptions being CSL, who have recently completed a large-scale flu vaccine manufacturing facility in Melbourne, and Moderna, who are completing an mRNA production facility. 

In June, the Queensland Government announced the establishment of a Sovereign Industry Development Fund, with biomedicine as one of the areas of focus, which is an encouraging step for the State’s sector, however this funding alone will not move the dial.

Sovereign manufacturing is important for Australia, but we shouldn’t pretend it’s easy. We’re never going to be fully self-sufficient, but we need the facilities and enough of the supply chain in place to make what we need here in an emergency. The good news is we’re not starting from scratch and we have the ability to successfully build these facilities.

Queensland has invested in facilities and capabilities that can support early stages of the pipeline at small scale, to test and build products or translate research that support business growth. Many of these facilities are located at The University of Queensland (UQ) campuses and health precincts or supplied through the University’s regional partnerships. 

An example of what’s possible is the $238 million Solutions for Manufacturing Advanced Regenerative Therapies (SMART) Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), hosted by UQ. Working with 63 partners, SMART CRC is tackling manufacturing bottlenecks and providing training solutions to accelerate the development of regenerative therapies for conditions like heart disease, cancer, arthritis and dementia. It ensures these therapies can be scaled, strengthening supply chains and reducing overseas reliance.

By enhancing our sovereign manufacturing, we can serve not only our own population, but our near neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Creating an ecosystem that encourages innovation

Australia needs to create conditions to encourage biotech companies to do business here. 

With a strong track record in biotech research — and with the headquarters of two major biotech companies, CSL and Telix Pharmaceuticals — Australia has a significant opportunity to grow this sector and attract more global industry.

We should look at San Francisco, Boston, Singapore, Cambridge and Oxford as examples of success in this area. They’ve all built ecosystems with high-performing universities, medical institutes, hospitals, and space for companies to co-locate. While we are starting to move in this direction, we need to keep a singular focus and ensure deliberate planning goes into facilitating a robust innovation ecosystem. 

It’s a major opportunity for Australia, particularly for Queensland, which is fast becoming one of the nation’s leading biotech hubs.

What’s next? 

Australia already has world-class hospitals, strong research infrastructure, a streamlined clinical trials sector, a robust patent system and a highly skilled workforce. At UQ alone, we’ve seen breakthroughs like the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil, the needle-free Nanopatch vaccine delivery system and research that has led to spin-out companies like Protagonist Therapeutics — now valued at over US$3 billion and on track to soon deliver multiple drug approvals. 

As one of the Australia’s most active biotech institutions, UQ demonstrates the impact of long-term investment and strategic focus. Its strong partnerships across industry and government support a biotherapeutics pipeline spanning discovery to delivery. Through its commercialisation company UniQuest, 134 spin-out companies have been launched and more than 360 US patents secured, generating more than US$68 billion in product sales from licensed technologies. 

With a concerted national focus, this model could be scaled up, positioning biotech as a core pillar of Australia’s future prosperity, productivity and resilience.