About the Event

For our next monthly Seminar Series, we’re going to explore the complexity of developing diagnostics and give you some advice from industry experts.

Zip Diagnostics undertakes domestic R&D manufacture of cutting-edge point-of-care molecular diagnostic test systems for infectious diseases. They were recently awarded research funding through the BioMedTech Horizons (BMTH) program, operated by MTPConnect. Their Co-founder and Director Dr Jack Richards has been an infectious diseases physician at Royal Melbourne Hospital for 17 years and laboratory head at Burnet Institute for eight years.

Also joining our expert panel is Dr Sarah Hennebry, a Senior Associate at FPA Patent Attorneys who specialises in patent matters for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Dr Hennebry completed her PhD at the Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne and completed three years of postdoctoral research at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute. She draws on her scientific background to understand detailed inventions and will share some case studies on the IP issues specific to diagnostics.

OneVentures is one of Australia’s leading venture capital firms and Dr John Westwater will bring his 20 years’ global life science experience across operational, venture capital and investment banking roles. Prior to OneVentures, John was the CFO at Elastagen, an innovative Australian medical device company, until it was sold to Allergan, a global medical aesthetics company. The deal was recognised by the AIC as the Best Venture Capital Investment of 2018. John’s CFO expertise spans fund-raising efforts including a Series B round and involvement in the design and execution of clinical studies conducted in the UK.

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