Everything to play for

摘要

At the end of April, hidden away among the high-rise hotels and beaches of Australia's Gold Coast, 85 top biotech bosses from all over Australia and New Zealand came together for the first time. Their mission: to work out how to hot-house the fledgling Australasian biotech industry. The timing could hardly have been better. The week after the meeting, the CEOs heard the details of the federal government's revamped programme of aid for the sector. To the delight of the CEOs, and AusBiotech, the main industry body, the new cash on the table amounts to $5.3 billion to invest across the board in research and innovation. "This package shows there was substance in the rhetoric that biotech is the way to the future," says Tony Coleupis, executive director of AusBiotech. The bottom line is that the plans hatched by the CEOs at their hideaway can be targeted more precisely both at helping to grow companies and at keeping the pressure on government to provide boosts such as a one-stop shop for funding.