Vaxxas celebrates major manufacturing milestone

Brisbane biotechnology company Vaxxas has reached a major manufacturing milestone, producing its 100th batch of needle‐free vaccine patches.

Vaxxas chief executive David Hoey at the company’s new factory producing needle free vaccines patches.

Brisbane biotechnology company Vaxxas has reached a major manufacturing milestone, producing its 100th batch of needle‐free vaccine patches in its home city.

The production at the Princess Alexandra Hospital’s Translational Research Institute (TRI) – is set to play important role in protecting Australians against infectious diseases.

Vaxxas’ high‐density microarray patch (HD‐MAP) technology is a small patch with thousands of vaccine‐coated microprojections that can be applied to the skin for just a few seconds to efficiently deliver vaccine to the abundant immune cells just below the skin’s surface.

Vaxxas’ 100th batch milestone coincides with the company’s official “graduation” from the TRI, which has been its home since 2015. This month, the company’s final TRI‐based employees will make the move to Vaxxas’ new purpose‐built 5,500sqm headquarters at Hamilton in Brisbane, which officially opened mid‐last year.

Vaxxas chief executive David Hoey says Vaxxas, founded in 2011, would not have succeeded without the help of the TRI, which helps with the commercialisation of early stage medical innovations.‘We had access to their clean rooms and other research facilities during the early days,” says Hoey.

Vaxxas chief executive David Hoey at the company new factory producing needle free vaccines patches.

“Vaxxas would not have existed without this infrastructure.”

Mr Hoey, who left Brisbane as young man to forge a biotech career in Boston, says that from a team of six in 2011, Vaxxas now employs 140 people. Vaxxas is at the vanguard of a growing biohealth ecosystem in Brisbane driven by research coming out of institutions such as the University of Queensland and the TRI.

“It has been a real step change going from pure research to scaling the technology – essentially from rodents to getting ready to use it on people,” say Hoey. He pays tribute to the University of Queensland and the late philanthropist Chuck Feeney who ensured the technology stayed in Queensland. “This technology would have come out of the University of Queensland and either gone overseas or to the southern states,” says Hoey.

“We needed to get access to infrastructure provided by places like the TRI otherwise it would have been lost.” He said Queensland’s growing interest in biotech would pay dividends in the years ahead. “We are a tiny part of it, but the more companies like us that feed into the industry the better because it has a snowballing effect,” says Hoey. “Even as a baby company we’ve invested $100m into the Queensland economy.”

Chamber lunch

The Royal International Convention Centre at Ekka was a full house for lunch on Friday as the city’s business leaders and captains of industry attended Business Chamber Queensland’s Federal Budget address with Treasurer Jim Chalmers. It’s the second year in a row the state chamber of commerce has hosted the federal treasurer in Queensland, days after he delivered the budget in Canberra, giving local businesses the chance to hear first hand from the Treasurer on what the budget means for them. Sponsors Australian Retirement Trust, BDO and Queensland University of Technology returned to support the event for another year. Chamber chief executive Heidi Cooper interviewed the treasurer, putting forward the questions the state’s businesses want answered: from addressing weak productivity and business costs like energy and wages, to budget commitments for local manufacturing and future workforce growth. It was the Treasurer’s sixth business event in six Australian cities since the budget was delivered, but the first of its kind in Queensland in 2024, and the chance for the treasurer to return to his home city in time for the weekend.

Business Chamber chief executive Heidi Cooper.