The consultant firm Ernst & Young has ranked Australia’s $12-billion biotechnology and bio-industry as the number one in the Asia and Pacific region and sixth worldwide in its 2003 global biotechnology census. Australia accounts for 67% of public biotechnology revenues for the Asia and Pacific region. The Australian government has provided a boost to bio-industry by providing close to A$1 billion in public biotechnology expenditure in 2002-2003. There were around 370
companies in Australia in 2002 – an increase from 190 in 2001 – whose core business was biotechnology. Human therapeutics made up 43%, agricultural biotechnology 16% and diagnostics companies 15%. Over 40 companies were listed biotechs and a study released by the Australian Graduate School of Management (Vitale and Sparling) reported that an investment of A$1,000 in each of the 24 biotechnology companies listed on the ASX between 1998 and 2002 would be worth more than A$61,000 in 2003 – an impressive 150% return. During the same period, shares in listed Australian biotechs significantly outperformed those of US biotechs, and the overall performance of listed Australian biotechnology companies was higher than that of the Australian stock market as a whole.
Over A$500 million was raised by Australian listed life-science companies in 2003. The ASX healthcare and biotechnology sector had a market capitalization of A$23.4 billion in 2003, up 18% on 2002. There has been a maturing of the Australian biotechnology sector with greater attention paid to sustainable business models, and identification of unique opportunities that are appealing to investors and partners. The industry is supported by its skilled personnel, with Australia considered to have a greater availability of scientists and engineers than the United Kingdom, Singapore and Germany.
Australia is ranked in the top five countries (with a population of 20 million or more) in terms of the availability of research-and-development (R&D) personnel. It outranks major OECD countries (including USA, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom) for public expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2003). For biomedical R&D, Australia is ranked the second most effective country – in front of the USA, the United Kingdom and Germany – particularly with respect to labour, salaries, utilities and income tax. Australia is ranked third for the cost competitiveness of conducting clinical trials after the Netherlands and Canada. Australian researchers indeed have a strong record of discovering and developing
therapeutics. Recent Australian world firsts include the discovery that Helicobacter pylori causes gastric ulcers, and the purification and cloning of three of the major regulators of blood-cell transformation – granulocyte colony stimulating factor (GCSF), granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (GMCSF) and leukaemia inhibiting factor (LIF).
