By Stuart Kavanagh
Finally, something good has come out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A CSIRO vaccine pilot facility started in the early stages of the pandemic in Melbourne, has proved so successful that it has been turned into a $23.1million lab to bolster Australia’s ability to produce vaccines and drug treatments locally.
The ability to now do this onshore as opposed to overseas has been touted as the ‘missing link’ in Australia’s biomedical science sector.
Dr. Larry Marshall, CEO of the CSIRO, said, “we created the pilot facility in anticipation of disease “X” – an expected but unknown disease that might impact us.
It turned out to be COVID-19. The past two years have highlighted the importance for Australia to have a robust sovereign capability in the development of vaccines and therapeutics, so we scaled it up into one of our shared National Labs.
“The problem facing our biomedical industry has been that most vaccine and drug candidates needed to be sent overseas to be produced in large quantities for clinical trials, adding burdensome costs that have crushed many Australian businesses and researchers as the invention languishes on the lab bench,” Dr Marshall said.
“This new shared National Lab will help Aussie companies bridge that ‘valley of death’ – the gap between the lab bench and making a product that’s having an impact on people’s lives.”
Any companies wishing to work with the new facility can call 1300363400 to make enquiries.
