In Case You Missed It: Here's What The MTPConnect Team Has Been Up To in April
04 May 2020
Pictured: Dr David Kok, a Radiation Oncologist and Director of Training at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, a clinical researcher and Course Convenor of the Master of Cancer Sciences degree at the University of Melbourne, with MTPConnect Managing Director & CEO Dr Dan Grant at the MTPConnect podcast studio in Melbourne.
COVID-19 Response
Members of our Board, executive and team are participating on various taskforces and sub-committees to provide assistance with COVID-19 initiatives at state and national levels and working closely with many organisations and businesses to help coordinate and support the sector response to COVID-19. We are promoting information to the sector including updates on Government tenders and Requests for Information, as well sharing opportunities and updates for research funding and clinical trial updates – keep up to date on our website.
Sector News
Our Chair Sue MacLeman, also the Chair of ATSE’s Health Forum, led the launch of ATSE’s Health Technology Report, ‘A New Prescription: preparing for a healthcare transformation’ which outlined how we can take best advantage of existing and emerging technology to meet future healthcare challenges such as COVID-19. This was done in partnership with CEDA.
Podcast Milestone
We celebrated our 50th podcast episode, talking with digital health company Spokle about commercialising a speech therapy app and launching in the Indonesian market. In other episodes, the podcast covered improving workforce skills in cancer research with the VCCC and medtech start-up journeys for Navi Medical Technologies and Tournicare. Our team also spoke with Colin La Galia from WA’s EpiChem about their COVID-19 pivot to develop chemical-grade hand sanitizer and Deloitte Access Economics’ Dr Pradeep Philip about COVID-19’s impact on our innovation mindset and the critical role of the MTP sector in Australia’s response and recovery.
Supporting the 2020 Australian Technology Competition
In April, the 2020 Australian Technology Competition launched, and MTPConnect along with our fellow Industry Growth Centres, NERA, METSIgnited, FIAL and AustCyber are supporting the competition for the fifth consecutive year. The Competition, which is in its 10th year, is taking its 2020 program online to adjust to the COVID-19 situation. Hurry applications close 8 May, 2020.
University of Sydney Drug Discovery Initiative
Our Director Stakeholder Engagement NSW Dr Duncan Macinnis participated in an interactive session for early stage researchers to discuss their emerging drug discovery projects in infectious, inflammation, neurological and CNS diseases with key industry leaders who offered pre-IP guidance on development plans. MTPConnect Director Julie Phillips represented Opal Biosciences on the panel.
2020 Bridge Program Launch
At the end of the month, our Director of the BTB Program, Lauren Kelly, was a virtual presenter at the 2020 Bridge Program launch. The program inducted 101 participants this year and in this COVID-19 environment, we are proud to see Bridge continuing to support emerging PhD and post-graduate students explore careers in the pharmaceutical sector.
ARCS Australia COVID-19 Series
We sponsored ARCS Australia’s free weekly seminar series: COVID – 19: considerations and strategies for running trials during the pandemic in April, with:
- Part 3 Jurisdictions: Federal/States
- Part 4: Ethics Committees and Governance
- Part 5: Role of clinical trial sponsors
Visit ARCS Australia to catch up on the webinars you may have missed, and we encourage you to sign up if you are part of the clinical trials community.
Broaden Your Horizons at MTPConnect
We are currently recruiting for a Project Manager to join our BioMedTech Horizons team and information about the role can be found on the Careers section of our website. Applications close 13 May, 5pm AEST.