Industry welcomes ALP boost to investment

Medicines Australia has welcomed the Government’s plan to boost biopharmaceutical innovation.

“It is great to see the Government making investments in manufacturing”, said Medicines Australia chief executive Dr Brendan Shaw.

“The Government’s announcement highlights the importance of partnership between government and the private sector to boost Australia’s international competitiveness and attract investment from overseas.”

“It is fantastic that three of Australia’s major pharmaceutical companies, GSK, AstraZeneca and CSL will be part of this project together with Monash University.

“Coming the same week as the Government’s substantial response to the McKeon review of medical research, it helps strengthen the case for Australia being a destination for global investment in the medicines industry.

“We have a real opportunity to build on Australia’s medicines industry and drive further collaboration between the industry and the public research sector.

“At a time when the global industry is actively looking for partnership opportunities to develop new medicines and vaccines, the Government’s announcements this week are very encouraging.

“Australia has always been great at inventing new medicines and vaccines, given our track record in medical research, and the challenge now is to build more commercial successes on the back of that.

“There’s some great stories of Australian ingenuity being commercially developed into successful medicines and vaccines for things like cervical cancer, influenza, skin cancer, pain management and stomach cramps. We just want to do more of this.

“Australia already earns more money exporting medicines than it does from exporting cars or wine, as well as being one of Australia’s great investors in R&D, and we want to build on that.”

The Australian medicines industry exports $4 billion a year and invests $1 billion a year in R&D.

-ENDS-

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