Monash University’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) joined Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF), an Australia-based biomedical technology commercialisation initiative managed by venture capital firm Brandon Capital Partners, yesterday.
Founded in 2007, MRCF is a collaboration between Australian superannuation funds and more than 50 Australia and New Zealand-based medical research institutes and research hospitals. It has more than A$350m ($278m) of funds under management.
The organisation provides seed funding to help develop and commercialise technologies originated at its partner institutions. Monash, located in Melbourne, Australia, launched medical research institute BDI in November 2016 to discover and develop treatments for diseases.
BDI targets discoveries in six areas: cancers, cardiovascular disease, neuroscience, human development and stem cells, infection and immunity, and metabolic disease and obesity. It has more than 700 researchers across some 120 teams.
The partnership means the development of BDI discoveries can be funded while they are advanced locally.
Professor John Carroll, director of Monash BDI, said: “This collaboration aligns with and complements the institute’s strategic goals around the translation of research and will provide a direct link to a dedicated source of early-stage capital, sophisticated investors and the extensive commercial, clinical and research network that the MRCF offers.”
