Australia’s oldest medical research institute – the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) – has begun making venture capital investments from a new $66 million fund aimed at turning scientific breakthroughs into blockbuster drugs and medical devices.

The institute has created its first strategic investment fund in its 109-year history, called 66ten. It will back new ventures at their riskiest stage to try to replicate a windfall it had from the successful sale of royalty rights to a cancer treatment it helped develop in 2017.