The Florey’s open for business
The Florey’s newly established Enterprise and Innovation office seeks to help researchers to move the ideas they have in the lab or clinic, through to industry partners who can collaborate or fund further development of these into new therapeutics, trials and other outcomes for the community.
Head of Enterprise and Innovation, Michelle Goldsmith, says the strength of The Florey’s discovery science and pre-clinical research, in addition to clinical expertise, provides a strong platform for translating discoveries for clinical application and benefit.
“The Florey is committed to maximising the impact of its research from a clinical and economic perspective. The novel scientific discoveries made at The Florey, strong support of Governments and local talent mean it’s a great place to collaborate to solve some of our greatest health challenges,” said Ms Goldsmith.
The first year of operations for the Enterprise and Innovation team which includes Michelle Goldsmith, Dr Phil Marley, Professor Ian Cooke and Charlotte Weld-Blundell has been a highly successful one. Not only have they improved the pipeline of projects which will attract industry interest, speed up processing times of preparing and reviewing legal agreements, but they’ve also worked with a research team to attract up to $15 million of tranche funding for an exciting epilepsy project.
The team has also turned their attention to ‘Florey Think Tanks’, short workshops which bring together expertise and perspective from different groups at The Florey. Convening these great minds to consider the big questions like the most promising approaches to develop neurotherapeutics has already led to interesting ideas with four new opportunities now being pursued.
Watch this space!