$4M boost for Australian Medtech Research Commercialisation : MTPConnect

23 September 2021

MTPConnect and the Minister for Health and Aged Care, The Hon. Greg Hunt MP, today announced $4 million in funding for five highly promising medical technology projects across Australia.

The funding - which has attracted an additional $5.1 million in industry contributions - comes from the fourth round of the BioMedTech Horizons (BMTH) program, an initiative of the Medical Research Future Fund operated by MTPConnect.

MTPConnect Managing Director and CEO, Dr Dan Grant, says this round focused predominantly on the development of pre-commercial prototypes that are entering human clinical trials.

“In a highly competitive round, our independent and expert evaluation committee has selected five projects for funding in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia,” Dr Grant said.

“The $4 million we’ve allocated to these projects has leveraged an additional $5.1 million in contributions from industry which means a total of $9 million is flowing into our healthtech sector.

“From the five selected projects, patients of the future are set to benefit from new medical devices for blindness and vision impairment, improved neonatal resuscitation, precision monitoring of fetal complications during birth, real-time atrial fibrillation/cardiac monitoring for patients at home and patient matched spinal implants.

“The power of the BMTH program means that within a year, these projects will be able to create prototype devices to be used in their intended environment, fast-tracking the steps to commercialisation ready for advanced manufacturing and clinical trials activity,” Dr Grant said.

BMTH Round 4 recipients:

Aria Research Pty Ltd (NSW) $800,000 – Developing a non-invasive bionic vision wearable development prototype for blind and vision impaired.
ResusRight Pty Ltd (NSW) $800,000 – Development of the ‘Juno’, a novel ventilation monitoring system for neonatal resuscitation
Seer Medical (VIC) $800,000 – Developing ‘Sense Cardiac’, a cloud enabled wearable cardiac monitor for at-home use
VitalTrace Pty Ltd (WA) $797,276 – Development of a precision real-time fetal biosensor for the prevention of stillbirth and fetal complications during childbirth
3DMorphic Pty Ltd (NSW) $800,000 – Personalised spinal surgery for Australians; a clinical trial of 3DMorphic’s advanced manufactured patient-specific spinal fusion devices.

Across four funding rounds, the BMTH program has funded 46 projects. Investments from the program are focused on supporting biomedical and medical technologies to develop from a proof-of-concept to a validated pre-commercial product that is attractive for private capital investment and commercialisation.