Cutting-edge innovation puts locals in the funding picture

Western Australian companies have enjoyed considerable success of late in securing funding to drive the development of innovative products, processes and services.

The resultant funding has enabled many local businesses to progress their ideas and products beyond the proof-of-concept stage and into the marketplace.

Perth-based Solbec Pharma-ceuticals has been offered a $2.25 million grant in the most recent round of federal government Commercial Ready funding for the clinical development of an experimental cancer treating drug compound.

The drug, Coramsine, targets both kidney cancer and malignant melanoma, and has great potential as there is currently no effective chemotherapy agent against end-stage malignant melanoma or renal cell carcinoma.

This particular grant will help test the drug compound in clinical trials, and Solbec has been buoyed by Coramsine’s pre-clinical and clinical results to date.

Their research has shown encouraging evidence that Coramsine has the potential to become a highly effective, non-invasive, anti-cancer therapy. It will use naturally-occurring agents to treat a wide range of cancers without significant side-effects.

Subiaco-based pharmaceutical innovators Go Medical Industries is another medico-sector company to be awarded Commercial Ready funding. The company, which specialises in fluid delivery, naso-gastric, specialist obstetrics and gynaecology, pain management and urology technologies, received $2,063,001 for work on a new treatment for drug users wishing to end their addiction.

Go Medical’s treatment system is based on a novel implant technology that provides a sustained therapeutic level of the treatment drug.

The research currently provides treatment for hard drugs such as heroin and other opiates, and the innovation has the potential to save lives, which is one of the main reasons for the government support.

A project to develop an in-flight structural monitoring system to improve aviation safety and reduce maintenance costs has secured a $2.9 million Commercial Ready grant for Structural Monitoring Systems of Osborne Park, which will use the funds to apply its technology to a method of monitoring cracks in aircraft structures.

The company aims to develop an in-flight system, based on new sensors and adhesives, able to withstand extremes of temperature and pressure, vibration and shock to monitor commercial and passenger aircraft.

It is hoped the commercialisation of this technology will make aircraft safer through the early detection of cracks, reduce maintenance costs and prolong the flying life of the aircraft.

Advanced mobile mining equipment data transfer and communications specialist, International Mining Technologies Pty Ltd, is planning a major international marketing campaign and the development of new safety and maintenance minimisation systems.

Formed in 1999 by father and son Alan and Todd Pearce to develop and market a core collision avoidance system for the mining sector, the Perth company received a big boost by winning a $2.25 million federal government AusIndustry grant in the face of some heavy national competition.

Since then, employee numbers at IMT have risen from six to 20 at its Osborne Park headquarters, and its unique range of data communications technology is being used by some of the country’s biggest mining companies.

The company’s products include patented collision avoidance systems, mobile mining equipment communication, safety and machine monitoring, and protective maintenance solutions.

One of IMT’s systems allows engine management and monitoring data to be transmitted from remote locations anywhere in the world, allowing critical events such as speeding, temperature rises, overloads and component failures to be identified and fixed.

Sub-sea engineering and offshore services company Seatrac Pty Ltd is bringing a new sub-sea well intervention system to the booming international oil and gas sector.

The Jandakot company was recently awarded a $1,603,800 federal Commercial Ready Grant to develop its system for installing, repairing and gathering data from offshore oil and gas wells.

The key to this $6 million project is that it utilises standard wireline technology deployed from easily sourced standard work vessels, typically in the 65 to 85 metre range, to access wells in water up to 500 metres deep.

Currently this work is carried out by much larger and more expensive drilling rigs that are in increasingly short supply.

All the R&D has been completed, with the first system expected to be ready by June this year.

Seatrac employs 25 people, including 10 engineers, about half of whom are working on the development and commercialisation of the sub-sea well intervention system.

Publicly listed QRSciences Holdings Ltd recently secured $2.8 million under the federal R&D Start Program (the predecessor of the Commercial Ready program), to assist its development of an advanced explosives detection system for airport baggage screeners.

The Perth company is a world leader in quadruple resonance applications, a technology that uses non-invasive radio waves to identify and detect a wide range of compounds.

The technology has a broad range of applications, including the detection of explosives, narcotics and biochemical substances; pharmaceutical quality control and assurance; mineral and material assay, lab instrumentation and other environmental science applications.

Unlisted West Perth technology company Cool Energy, run by managing director Jessie Inman, was awarded $1,922,113 through R&D Start for its revolutionary new type of gas sweetening technology that strips the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, out of gas reserves.

The technology was initially developed at WA’s Curtin University of Technology and the new product aims to develop a gas sweetening process for use in small to medium gas processing projects and allow an innovative commercial scale cryogenic separation of very high levels of contaminants from natural gas.

Among its commercial applications will be the elimination of the use of hazardous solvents and chemicals normally used in CO2 removal, and the ability to efficiently sequester CO2 , allowing effective disposal of greenhouse gases.

Innovative Perth companies are also being honoured overseas, with publicly listed Advanced Nanotechnology Ltd recently winning the prestigious Frost & Sullivan’s Excellence in Technology of the Year Award in the field of nanomaterials.

The New York-based analytical group said ANL’s “path breaking efforts have brought a new paradigm to nanopowder production.”

ANL makes dispersions of nano (very small) particles from various metals in transparent liquids. The unique, patented technology produces nanopowders, applications for which include electronics, cosmetics, fuel additives, advanced ceramics, high-performance alloys and coatings, medicine, biotechnology, drug delivery and ultra violet resistant coatings.

ANL, which employs 30 people, arose from R&D work at the University of Western Australia, which retains a 29 per cent stake in the company.

Chief executive officer Paul McCormick said the company was considering moving all, or part, of its operations overseas because of rising costs and the expectation that its Welshpool plant will reach capacity in less than two years.