Monash and consortium awarded funds to build national internship training program

ACCELERATE program recognised as a big, bold idea to improve the productivity, competitiveness and innovative capacity of Australia’s medtech, biotech and pharmaceutical sector.

MTPConnect - the Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals Industry Growth Centre - today announced it will provide a proposed $250,000 provisional funding to ACCELERATE: Building the talent pool over two years, with proposed matched funding of $250,000 coming from the sector.

The funding will allow the ACCELERATE program to build clinical trial capability and capacity to grow the MTP Sector.

The project is led by ARCS Australia, and includes members from:

  • ARCS Australia Ltd
  • Clinical Network Services (CNS) Pty Ltd
  • George Clinical Pty Ltd
  • Monash University
  • Novotech Ltd
  • OnQ Recruitment Pty Ltd
  • Pharma to Market Pty Ltd
  • PPD Australia Pty Ltd
  • QuintilesIMS Pty Ltd
  • Seerpharma Pty Ltd
  • SPHERE
  • St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne
  • University of the Sunshine Coast
  • University of Sydney
  • UNSW, Sydney

The MTP Sector is constrained in growth through lack of appropriately skilled and experienced workforce participants, particularly for conducting clinical trials. This project aims to connect MTP companies with appropriately trained graduates to equip them with job-ready skills to meet this gap.

ACCELERATE’s goal is to build a formal national internship training program to provide skilled and industry-ready participants by exposing them to the companies engaged in clinical research. The project will deliver up to 30 students through a program of industry-led education, mentoring and internship over a two-year period. This will result in strengthening Australia as an attractive clinical research destination, and improve management and workforce skills in the MTP space.

MTPConnect’s Project Fund Program is a competitive, dollar-for-dollar matched funding program investing in big, bold ideas to improve the productivity, competitiveness and innovative capacity of Australia’s medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector. MTPConnect is supported by the Australian Government’s Industry Growth Centres Initiative.

This year, MTPConnect has selected 20 national MTP projects to receive $7.385 million in funding over two years with proposed matched funding of $15.2million coming from the sector. Last year, the launch of the program saw 14 projects receive $7.4 million in funding over two years, with matched funding of c.$15.6 million. Following the success of these projects, this year’s program received significant interest from the sector, with 33 applications from industry, research organisations and universities to share in the funding available, with a proposed $25.8 million of matched funding coming from the sector.

Shanny Dyer, CEO of ARCS Australia, said, “we’re delighted that MTPConnect has awarded ACCELERATE this grant. We have a strong and knowledgeable consortium to run this program, which will be able to work on meeting the growth needs of the MTP sector. We’re excited to expand the talent pool and build a skilled and informed workforce in Australia.”

Sue MacLeman, CEO of MTPConnect, said, “MTPConnect is focused on harnessing Australia’s world-class research to seize more commercialisation opportunities and accelerate growth. As part of our mission, we are funding big, bold ideas that will deliver results on a national scale, have sector-wide impact, and are aligned with the Sector Growth Priorities we have identified in our 10-year Sector Competitiveness Plan. By supporting project such as ACCELERATE, we believe we can develop a more vibrant MTP sector ecosystem with more successful companies, and ultimately improve the health and wellbeing of Australia and the world.”

For more information on MTPConnect’s Project Fund Program and the successful applicants, visit: www.mtpconnect.org.au/2017projects

About ARCS Australia
ARCS supports the education, training and networking of individuals and provides representation for member interests for those working in the scientific disciplines of regulation, clinical research, health economics, medical affairs, medical information, pharmacovigilance and associated disciplines in the pharmaceutical and medical devices sectors. Membership is on an individual basis and currently stands at approximately 2,000. Visit arcs.com.au.

About MTPConnect
MTPConnect was formed as an industry-led independent not-for-profit organisation in November 2015 as part of the federal government’s Industry Growth Centres Initiative to accelerate the rate of growth of the MTP sector to achieve greater commercialisation and establish Australia as an Asia-Pacific hub for MTP companies.
The MTPConnect Head Office is located at the New Horizons Building at Monash University, co-located with CSIRO and industry. There are also key hubs at the University of Sydney’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology and the Medical Device Research Institute at Flinders University at Tonsley in Adelaide.