Our Collaborations
Major Collaborations
The discovery, development and optimal use of medicines is a complex, international enterprise. To make significant change, our researchers partner with industry, government and philanthropic organisations across the world to improve global health.
Global Women’s Health
Every year, up to 60,000 women die of blood loss after childbirth, an outcome that can be prevented by injection of the drug oxytocin. Together with philanthropic organisations and international Pharma partners we are developing a novel aerosol system for oxytocin delivery that allows the drug to be inhaled from a simple, disposable device, making it accessible and affordable in resource poor communities.
Parasitic Infectious Diseases
Parasitic infectious diseases are responsible for millions of deaths each year in the world’s poorest countries. Together with major publicprivate partnerships such as the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) we are discovering and developing life-saving drugs to treat malaria, as well as neglected diseases such as human African trypanosomiasis, Leishmania and Chagas disease.
Drug Discovery
Drug discovery is one of the most complex interdisciplinary challenges in science. MIPS scientists work with biologists, chemists, and delivery scientists within Australia and internationally to drive advances in drug discovery in devastating diseases including microbial and parasitic infection, cancer, CNS and metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease
New Technologies For Drug Delivery
Even the most potent drugs fail in the clinic if they are not effectively delivered to the target tissue. MIPS scientists are working with Pharma partners, including Starpharma, PolyActiva and GSK to promote drug absorption after oral administration, target highly toxic cancer drugs specifically to tumour sites and to sustain and control drug delivery to reduce dosing frequency and avoid toxicity.
Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting Australian women. We are collaborating with clinical colleagues at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne to evaluate the role of anaesthetic choice and chronic stress on breast cancer progression. This work will clinically validate optimal anaesthetic regimens during cancer surgery and identify drugs that inhibit the stress response to reduce cancer metastasis.
Biomedical Translation
BioCurate is an $80 million partnership between Monash University and The University of Melbourne that aims to traverse the “valley of death” between early drug discovery and the clinical validation and development pipeline. BioCurate will target this critical phase of preclinical and early clinical development and provide the commercial focus, expertise and funding necessary to boost successful translation and commercialisation.
New Drug Targets
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the targets for approximately 40% of modern medicines. MIPS researchers are involved in a major collaboration with French pharmaceutical company Servier to develop new drugs against GPCR targets to treat diseases such as psychiatric and metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease. The collaboration seeks to identify novel GPCR targets, understand their role in disease and discover new drugs that modulate GPCR activity.
Innovative Medicines Manufacturing
MIPS is home to the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre (MMIC), an industry hub led by MIPS researchers with investment from the Victorian State Government. The Centre supports pharmaceutical manufacturers and allied industries by providing innovative formulation and analytical expertise to current and new product development programs.
Nanomedicines
Nanomedicines and nanotechnologies are on the cusp of revolutionising diagnosis and therapy in many diseases. Our multi-disciplinary research teams aim to understand and control the interaction of nanomaterials with biological systems and in doing so progress the design of the drugs, delivery systems and biosensors of tomorrow.
Pharmalliance
PharmAlliance is an international partnership between three global leaders in pharmacy and pharmaceutical science: Monash University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University College London. Together with our PharmAlliance partners we work collaboratively to address major international challenges in education, professional engagement and research and to inspire and train tomorrow’s leaders.
Improved Health Outcomes Solutions
Our researchers are partnering with Certara, a leading drug development stewardship organisation, to utilise the most scientificallyadvanced modelling and simulation methods to enhance health outcomes. These approaches span the discovery, preclinical and clinical stages of drug development, enabling datadriven decisions, more precisely designed trials,reduced risks of clinical failure and improved patient safety.