CSL in supporting role on $95m joint biotech incubator project with WEHI, Mel Uni

CSL will support, but not lead, a $95m joint incubator project that could ‘put Australia on the map’ for biotech developments.

CSL chief scientific officer Andrew Nash at CSL’s Broadmeadows facility. Picture: David Crosling

Australia’s proposed $95m biotech incubator will be run by an independent operator, supporter CSL says.

The biotech giant, Victoria’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and the University of Melbourne are partners in the project, which on Tuesday became the first to win support from the $2bn, 10-year Breakthrough Victoria Fund, a state government entity.

CSL said the partners were providing both funding and in-kind support to create and ­support the incubator and said the Breakthrough contribution would be “a significant amount which is commercial in confidence”.

The incubator will take up two floors within CSL’s new $340m headquarters under construction at the Parkville biomedical precinct in Melbourne.

It has an opening date of 2023 and will be able to accommodate up to 40 early-stage companies, which will be selected by the ­operator.

CSL said the incubator’s co-location with the biopharmaceutical company would provide the “wraparound support” start-ups needed to translate Australian medical research into new treatments and therapies.

The incubator will be embedded alongside CSL’s seven floors of laboratory and clinical manufacturing space supporting its own $US1bn ($1.4bn)-plus annual research and development ­program.

“We are well positioned to support incubator residents, whose experience often lies purely within the lab, (and) better understand commercial aspects of medicines development that may be foreign or new to them,” CSL chief executive Paul Perreault said.

CSL’s chief scientific officer, Andrew Nash, said CSL was well aware of the benefits incubation could provide start-ups and said it was a model that had been successfully implemented across the world. “CSL is not taking the lead on this incubator,” Dr Nash said.

“We are excited to partner with WEHI and UoM to establish a biotech start-up incubator in Melbourne’s biomedical precinct.”

Dr Nash said the project “has an overarching vision of putting Australia on the map as a globally recognised hub for biotech translation and commercialisation”.

“This is about building a biomedical ecosystem to boost the translation and commercialisation of Australian medical research,” he said.

“It is important for companies like CSL to invest in all parts of the biotech supply chain, and this is further evidence of that.”

CSL will instead focus on its HQ development, $900m fractionation plant expansion at Broadmeadows, in Melbourne’s north and operational next year, and the $800m vaccines facility at Tullamarine, which has a start date of 2026.

The group is also on track to complete manufacturing about 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, Vaxzevria.

“Already over 23 million doses have been produced to protect Australians and those in the Asia-Pacific region, and it is expected that the remaining production will be completed next year,” Dr Nash said.

As reported previously, the pandemic has also resulted in the acceleration of CSL’s mRNA technology.

Its Seqirus business is working on next-generation self-amplifying mRNA, which aims to address some of the challenges experienced with current-generation mRNA vaccines.

“Pre-clinical studies have been promising and human trials for influenza are expected to commence with a phase one study in 2022,” Dr Nash said.

Shares in the CSL, which has a market capitalisation of $144bn, rose 0.3 per cent to $317.06 on Tuesday.