The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation has invested $150 million in life sciences venture capital firm Brandon Capital, in a major push to keep Australia’s medical breakthroughs from heading offshore at the point of commercialisation.
The investment — the NRF’s second largest to date — is aimed at strengthening Australia’s sovereign medical manufacturing capability by supporting local companies from the early research stages through to commercial success.
Brandon Capital, which is Australia’s largest life science investment fund, has backed some of Australia’s most promising medtech startups since it was founded in 2007, including MyoKardia and NRF recipient PolyActiva.
This new deal pushes the NRFC’s investments during last financial year past its target of $550 million, and will help accelerate commercialisation pathways and build high-value, innovation-focused jobs in the medical sector.
“Australia produces some of the world’s best medical research, but these promising discoveries are often lost offshore at the point of commercialisation and Australian medical manufacturing makes up only 0.3 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product,” NRFC chief executive David Gall said.
“Our partnership with Brandon Capital will help to ensure that more of Australia’s world-class medical innovation makes the full onshore journey from laboratory to commercial viability so that highly skilled jobs can contribute to Australia’s commercialisation of important medical innovation.”
Mr Gall added that medical science has long development timelines, requiring strategic, long-term investment to bring ideas to life, saying “If we want medical science jobs and industries to exist in Australia in ten years, we need to invest in them today”.
Brandon Capital founding partner and managing director Chris Nave described the funding as “a vote of confidence in the future of Australian medical sciences” and would take Brandon Capital’s BB6 fund to $439 million, making it the firm’s largest to date.
“The NRFC’s investment will support some of Australia’s most promising biomedical companies, providing the level of funding required to support the development and commercialisation of their novel technologies and importantly, enabling them to do this from an Australian base,” Dr Nave said.
Brandon Capital is expected to use the funding to back early-stage and growth-phase startups in areas like BioTech, MedTech and digital health, building on the firm’s 17-year track record.
On Wednesday, the federal government issued a new statement of expectations to the NRF Corporation, directing it to invest $1.5 billion across its seven priority investment areas, including AI, quantum and medical science.
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