Vic biomeds dominate BIF round funding

Biomedicine companies emerged the big winners among 22 biotech hopefuls who will share $4.74 million in the latest round of Biotechnology Innovation Fund grants.

The grants, announced today, ranged in size from $120,000 to $250,000 - with seven of the 22 receiving the maximum amount.

Victorian companies led the scramble as eight companies from that State were given a guernsey. Queensland was a clear second with five grants, followed by New South Wales and South Australia (three each), Western Australia (2) and ACT (1).

Companies oriented toward biomedical and healthcare products captured 11 of the 22 grants on offer. Bio-agriculture was the next successful category (4 companies), trailed by bioinformatics (3) and environment (1).

Successful companies on a category by category basis included:

• Agricultural biotech (Australian Bioactive Compounds, Bovogen Biologicals, Hexima, NyPa Australia, ToxiTech)
• Biomedical and healthcare (Biomedtech Australia, Biosignal, Gene Stream, Madry Technologies, MedSeed, Mimetica, National Health Sciences Centre, Optiscan, Pargenex Pharmaceuticals, Techmin, Vacquel
• Bioinformatics (Cytopia, Genera Biosystems, Nanomics, Biosystems)
• Environment (Flinders Bioremediation)

Other BIF recipients included Primegro (fertility vaccine for canines) and Ozgene (transgenic animal techniques).

BIF grants are meant to help companies bridge the proof-of-concept gap between research and commercial development.

The program, which started last May, is worth $40 million over three years to the biotechnology sector.

An initiative launched through the Commonwealth's National Biotechnology Strategy, its original $20 million program was later doubled using resources from the $3 billion Backing Australia's Ability package.