Minister flags Australian medical manufacturing in visit to Macquarie Park

Australia’s Minister for Industry and Science, the Hon. Ed Husic MP, met with business leaders in Macquarie Park – Australia’s original innovation district – yesterday.  

Minister Husic was welcomed to Macquarie Technology Group’s recently upgraded data centre campus, where he presented to a roundtable of Macquarie Park stakeholders alongside Federal Member for Bennelong, Jerome Laxale MP.  

Minister Husic shared news from his portfolio, including confirmation of the new Board of the National Reconstruction Fund (NRF), and its focus on advanced medical manufacturing: 

“Australia has a proud reputation in medical manufacturing – look at Cochlear in Macquarie Park,” the Minister said, 

“The pandemic showed us the things we need weren’t there when we needed them most. That’s why we’re thinking about today’s medical manufacturing capability here in Australia. A lot of our support will be to scale up small and medium sized enterprises.” 

The Minister’s Department released a discussion paper on Australia’s RNA (RiboNucleic Acid) technology industry earlier this week.    

This paper recognises the growth opportunities and challenges facing Australia’s RNA industry, and comes as the Victorian, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australian governments compete to invest in this sector.  

Australia’s RNA sector was recently bolstered by the New South Wales Government’s commitment to build a $96 million RNA research and pilot manufacturing facility on Macquarie University campus, operated by global gene specialists Myeloid Therapeutics.  

Plans for this facility will further leverage the state’s capacity for local production and enhance Macquarie Park’s biomedical aptitude.  

Minister Husic’s Department recently helped boost research & development in Macquarie Park innovation district, giving a $2.8 million grant to a local company.  

Enviropacific Services (Epping Road) received funding to commercialise its environmentally-focused technology, turning waste from thermal treatment facilities into innovative construction materials.  

This was one of 24 grants issued under the Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) initiative. The focus of this funding round was the circular economy, and the priority areas of the $15 billion NRF.