Episode 67: Advancing Biotech Through Global Partnerships with Key Opinion Leaders Alita Singer and David Brown

G'day!

In this episode, you'll learn how Trade and Investment Queensland connects their biotech innovators with global markets, supports companies navigating international challenges, and drives partnerships to advance biotech in Australia and beyond.

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Serving the entire Gulf South, but recorded in the heart of New Orleans.

Welcome back to BIO from the Bayou. I'm James Zanewicz, the Chief Strategy Officer at Tulane Medicine, and we're recording from BIO on the Bayou 2024. Today's guests are Alida Singer, Investment Director at Trade and Investment Queensland in New York, and David Brown, Research Partnerships and Corporate Innovation Director at Trade and Investment Queensland for North America. Queensland boasts the cities of Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and Cairns, and Trade and Investment Queensland, or TIQ for short, is the government's dedicated global business agency. Welcome to the show, guys.

Great to be here.

So you almost can't get further apart than the Gulf South and Australia. I'm curious, could you tell us more about your mission and how you build the robust biotech ecosystem for Queensland? And have you seen any similarities from the Gulf South this week? Because you're a day and a half into the conference now, so you really have a sense of who we are as a region.

Yeah, we have a few missions here in the US to connect Queensland and North America. Firstly, we help North American companies that may have an interest in expanding to Queensland as part of their APAC operations relevant to health and life sciences. That includes promoting Queensland as a destination for fast, cost-effective clinical trials. We also connect sponsors of other R&D more generally to our scientific research ecosystem down there. On the other side of the coin, we also help our Queensland companies expand into North America. And find partners or investors, and we also provide advice more generally on their market entry where they need it. We have seen some interesting similarities here with some of the work being done at the universities at the conference and some of the expertise that we have in Queensland, particularly in the areas like tropical medicine, infectious disease, oncology and neurology, as well as applications for defence, where we see a lot of alignment given the close ally relationship between the US and Australia. We're a large state with a diverse population. We also have a lot of remote communities. So we see some similarities there as well on the regional health side of things. Queensland's 2.5 times the size of Texas with a population of only 5.5 million people. So 80% of our population lives in 20% of the state. And therefore we have to have some really innovative ideas around servicing the needs of the entire state of Queensland. So for example, our Queensland Department of Health leads our nation's telehealth initiative, which can be really important reaching those remote areas, which can be important for clinical trials and servicing those diverse communities.

And you have a broad geography as well, much like the Gulf South, where we go from swamp to some mountains to everything else. And Queensland is very similar, as I recall, right?

Exactly. Yeah.

So Alita, if I can turn to you for a moment, you have a ton of experience working with the US market. And so I wanted to ask you what some of the key challenges Queensland biotech startups face when entering these markets, and how does your team help them navigate these obstacles or opportunities, as I like to call them sometimes, because you learn from everything. Sure.

Thanks, James. I think the biggest challenges that we face with companies coming over here is really in relation to education and familiarisation with the market. There's obviously the US has stringent regulatory requirements, particularly from the FDA. Navigating this landscape can be complex and requires a thorough understanding of the regulatory process here, which can be daunting for foreign companies and can be daunting for Queensland companies coming over here. The TGA in Australia, which is our equivalent to the FDA, also has robust regulatory requirements. However, the challenge is understanding and addressing the differences between the two. So that's one area. There is some cultural differences as you probably wouldn't necessarily attribute. We obviously speak the same language, but sometimes people, the US citizens, don't think we speak English or American. So that can be a little different. And there's obviously the nuances of the US business culture, negotiation styles, and investor expectations can be different.

Mm-hmm.

from Australia. The US biotech market is extremely competitive with many established players, so standing out amongst the innovative companies can be difficult. I'm based in New York, and as I say to my clients, there is a lot of noise here, so you really need to stand out. Like, what is your area of significant impact and difference here? The funding landscape is quite different. Whilst the US has a robust venture capital ecosystem, competition for funding is intense. Startups need to clearly articulate their value propositions. Australia's VC and funding environment is not as mature. So we're not as articulate or not as educated sometimes when we get in front of investors. Because it's not as mature, it's a reason why a lot of Australian companies bypass the local VC ecosystem and actually come to the US looking for funding. And then of course, understanding the non-dilutive funding pathways in the US with BARDA and the DoD are also important to understand, and also the eligibility criteria. So we as a foreign company can't apply for SBIR funding or anything like that. So it's just education those areas. Market understanding is another big one. Gaining insights into the US healthcare landscape, which includes payer dynamics, reimbursement, workflow integration for technologies, patient needs, is crucial for tailoring products and strategies. And then of course, expanding and scaling into the US often requires significant financing, which I think some companies underestimate. So that's a huge point that we put to them. And then of course, there's the economic and political factors. So fluctuating economic conditions, interest rate impacts can affect investor sentiment and market stability. How we address that? Well, this is what TIQ is for. So we help our biotech startups navigate these challenges. Essentially, we act as the eyes and ears on the ground in the US to support our sector with real-time market intelligence and connections. And then of course, for more one-on-one support, we can introduce them to local advisors. We're part of groups like The Bullpen, which is a major player in this week's conference. Where Trade Investment Queensland is a member of EmTech, the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium.

Oh yeah, Jill Sorensen, one of my first mentors. Absolutely.

So we, you know, had a fun conversation with Jill just a few weeks ago. So we do a lot with them throughout the year with JPMorgan and BIO as well. As Dave alluded to before, we're essentially matching our companies with service providers and investment and connections and networks here in the US.

I want to pull on one of the little threads that you talked about, because I know there's a phrase in Australia that I'm probably going to butcher, but it's something about not standing too tall among the flowers. Am I close?

Tall poppy syndrome.

That's it. Yeah.

The tallest poppy gets cut.

Yeah.

But like in entrepreneurship, you have to be the tall poppy. Is that something where you help coach people on how to kind of overcome that? Because it is very much the Australian culture where Americans are brash and outgoing.

Yeah.

Australians are much more about the community. And so how do you teach them to stand out?

Absolutely. And that actually is one of the most interesting aspects of educating and mentoring these companies because Australians by and large, don't actually toot their horns as much as other cultures, and the US culture being one of those. So it's—

Exceptionally so, yeah. We're aware.

And so it's difficult for them to compete. And so that's the point in terms of there's a lot of noise over here and how do you actually articulate and put yourself in a better stead than some of these other countries.

Anytime they want to do that in the Gulf South, you talk to me and Ian and we'll have them on as a guest and help them do that. Give them a little push. Absolutely.

Definitely, definitely.

Our job's pretty easy though, because there is a lot of great world-class research coming out of Queensland. There's some great innovations coming out of it. And at the end of the day, the science and innovation somewhat speaks for itself. And so we're just here really to bring out the best of our companies and to act as a support mechanism.

That's a perfect segue for me. So David, I want to pop back to you because you have a growing reputation in Queensland in the biotech sector. So what role do international collaborations play in advancing bioinnovation? And how do you help facilitate those partnerships between Queensland and global biotech leaders?

Well, good ideas and good science can come from anywhere, and there are fewer barriers these days to international collaboration than before. And we think that there's a lot to gain from bringing together the right people with the right expertise or the right infrastructure or facilities, bringing them together wherever they are to solve some of humanity's greatest challenges. Like, we need to do that. There are some really big challenges we need to solve, not just in health and life sciences, but in energy and climate and sustainability and other things. And at the end of the day, we as TIQ, we're matchmakers. It's our job just to understand the needs of North American biotechs and pharma companies and philanthropic organisations. And we help match them with the relevant capabilities that exist in Queensland, which we have a really good understanding of. And that kind of matchmaking is hopefully beneficial to both parties. They both gain from that. I mentioned clinical trials earlier. That's an area of international collaboration where Queensland and Australia more generally can play a really significant role in helping early-stage biotechs make their runways last longer and preserve their founder equity, which is super important. Phase 1, Phase 2 clinical trials in Australia can be up to 60% cheaper and take significantly less time than in the US. So the FDA will accept that data from those studies, and that can make a huge difference when capital is scarce.

Very nice. Do you have any recent examples, either one of you, of successful collaborations between Queensland and the partners, whether they're in the Gulf South? We'd love to hear about those more, but anywhere in the US.

Actually, we do.

Excellent. We love that.

So, one of our leading universities, the University of Queensland, has a partnership with Ochsner Health down in—

Oh, nice. That's right. The med school program, right?

Absolutely.

I don't know why I didn't think about that. Yeah.

So, it allows a 2-way exchange of medical students, essentially. So, that's one example. UQ has a research partnership with Emory University in Atlanta with aims to accelerate the development and delivery of vaccines to help address the world's most critical health challenges. The partnership builds on more than a decade of collaboration of drug discovery between the Emory University, the University of Queensland, but also our premier medical research institute, QIMR Berghofer. One other university, Griffith University's Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, recently celebrated the opening of a mass spectrometry platform for health discoveries, which is a significant collaboration with Thermo Fisher Scientific. So that's another example. Queensland University of Technology, which I think, you know, folk there, has established notable partnerships with institutions including the new University of California in San Francisco, the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University, Cleveland Clinic, just to name a few. So in late 2022, Queensland partnered with Sanofi, which is a French multinational company but has a huge R&D footprint just outside of Boston.

Back when I was a chemist, they bought my old company, which was Rhône-Poulenc Rohrer. So I know Sanofi well. I was gone at that point because my job was to make paint and watch it dry. It was not fun.

So you know and love Sanofi. We know and love Sanofi. And that was a collaboration actually between the Queensland government, Sanofi Vaccines, and 2 universities being the University of Queensland and Griffith University. So they're establishing a translational science hub, which is actually coming out of the ground at the moment in Brisbane, which is a world first for mRNA Vaccine discoveries, etc., in Brisbane. I've got a couple more examples, so bear with me.

Yeah, love this.

Pfizer in 2022 acquired a University of Queensland telehealth startup, ResApp, for almost $120 million US. ResApp has developed machine learning to diagnose and measure the severity of respiratory diseases, so including COVID. At that time, it was a big forefront. We have another company which you may have heard of, Vaxxas, And Vaxxas has developed a needle-free platform technology for vaccine delivery, and they've been the recipient of several US government grants through BARDA to further develop the platform, but also most recently some funding to conduct bird flu trials in Australia. So they're conducting those in both Queensland and New South Wales. And just this week, they announced that they have been granted to take a licence from the NIH to develop RSV. vaccine on their platform technology. So that's fantastic. And last one, I promise, and probably our most well-known export is Gardasil, which is the vaccine to protect against human papillomavirus. Professor Ian Fraser and his team from the University of Queensland conducted that groundbreaking research back in the '90s, which led to a partnership with Merck and Co., or MSD as they're known.

So I worked with some of the other investigators who did that at the University of Louisville when I was there.

Fabulous.

Very funny.

Well, I should have made that connection.

Full circle. Well, because I'm not there now. I just noticed that Tulane was missing, which is sad, but we can work on fixing that.

Well, we're here this week.

Exactly.

And we met with Tulane, and there looks like some great, exciting opportunities in there.

Given a lot of what you've talked about, probably one is Ian's dad, James McLaughlin, who's one of our scientists. He and his work spouse, Lisa Marici, are heavy in vaccine adjuvants, really novel, cutting-edge stuff. It'd be some great stuff. We have a whole podcast Ian's done on that where his dad had sexy podcast voice. And I'm like, who is this on the podcast? And his mom's going to listen to this and love it, but like, That's one we definitely need to send over to you to take a listen to. Absolutely.

Shoot us a link.

Thank you.

Ian, can you take care of making that introduction for you and your dad? Of course. Of course.

Done.

Love it. Happy to do so. All right. Well, you talked about RezApp, which was machine learning, I believe. And that brings to mind for me the rapid evolution of the industry now is personalized medicine, AI, things like this. So what kind of work do you do to stay on top of these trends and help your biotech sector stay ahead of them?

Yeah, well, firstly, that's one of the reasons why we're here in this market to bring that in-depth market knowledge back to our ecosystem in Queensland. We deliver that one-on-one with our clients via our usual client service model. We also conduct things like webinar series with US partners where they can deliver insights to a larger audience in Queensland. We've based our offices here in the US in innovation hubs on the West Coast in San Francisco and in the East Coast in New York, but we also travel a lot to conferences like this. We build relationships, we learn from key opinion leaders, we meet with service providers who bring additional expertise to the table. Often for larger conferences, we'll be working with large delegations from Queensland that have traveled over to the US to experience all of these things firsthand so they can learn it for themselves as well. We obviously see a lot of the trends from the innovative biotechs and universities that we're speaking to. We also follow the money by staying close to the VC community and watching where they are investing their funds. We subscribe to online tools, we digest relevant reports. Some of those even use AI to surface the trends themselves, and that makes our job a little bit easier. So it's the sum of a few things. And yeah, we sort of keep our finger on the pulse that way.

Yeah, we're trying to do the same. So, you know, we have less money than many of the major universities and resources in the Gulf South, but we jumped in early. We're members of the Alliance for AI in Healthcare. I don't know if you've met Dr. Elaine Hamm yet, but if not, we need to make sure to connect you with her today. She, in addition to being our executive in residence, is the executive director of the industry association in AI and healthcare in America. So we can help make those connections for you as well. This has been phenomenal. I always love these conversations. Before we close, I want to ask if there's anything you felt like we didn't touch on that we should. And then I'm going to ask you to give our listeners, because I think there are going to be a lot of folks who want to reach out to you, tell them how to. But any final thoughts and then how should they connect with you?

Well, let me actually start by doing the answering that those 2 questions together. So being based in the US and as Dave mentioned, we've got to keep our fingers on the pulse here. So we do a couple of activations throughout the year, the main ones being JPMorgan in San Francisco in January and then the big BIO conference, which will be held in Boston next year. At BIO this year, we had about 450 Australians that came over. We had over 100 Queensland delegates. We delivered a couple of different events. There's a Queensland event, there's a really large Australian event. We personally delivered some investment roundtable pitches. So I'd love for people to reach out to us that are either looking for pipeline or looking for strategic research partnerships. That's our bread and butter of what we help our companies for. And we'll start that approach soon for JPMorgan in January. So please keep an eye out. Please respond to my emails.

And absolutely. So I will be at the Bullpens. That's where I'll be. Yes, you find me there easy.

Absolutely. And speaking of the Bullpen, as I mentioned before, we have been participating in Bullpen activities this week, and that's actually from our local government partners, the Brisbane Economic Development Agency. They are a member of Bullpen and we are their proxies this week for that. And so love connecting with Christian and Kaylee and the group there and all the different activities. I mentioned before MTEC, so we're members of that. So we hope to participate in the MTEC annual meeting. Next year in Denver, Colorado, and hope to bring a delegation across. Defense and US government contracts is a big push from our end to educate and try to connect our companies into that. And then LinkedIn. LinkedIn's the best, you know, the good old LinkedIn. It's the best way. And of course, happy for our emails to go out for people to connect us directly. But really, we're here to have those conversations. You never know where a partnership or friendship is going to start and lead to. So that's a lot of the conversations that we're having this week is just to connect with people. So we're pretty friendly. Don't be shy and scared of us. Come up and have a talk. And yes, I did used to have kangaroos bouncing around in my backyard. You can ask me those questions. Yes, there is large snakes. Yes, there is very large spiders.

I know about your bio parties because it's probably been 10 years since I've been to one. Our receptions have conflicted now, but I still have a gold kangaroo pin in my jewelry box from San Diego, a bio party there. So I know.

Fabulous.

Well, actually— Your bio parties are legend.

Well, thank you very much for that. Due to government support. So that's great. So actually this year at investor roundtable, we gave away to the investors their big plush kangaroos.

Oh, nice.

Surfing kangaroos. So, you know, there is some benefits to come along aside from listening to some really great innovation and meeting some great founders.

Dave, also LinkedIn for you. Any other way?

LinkedIn and email. Very responsive.

Well, thank you guys so much. I really enjoyed this. We're gonna keep an eye on what you're doing. I'm so glad we connected earlier this year and got a chance to get you down to the Gulf South. Mark your calendar for next year, October 28th and 29th. We're gonna do this all over again. The venue tonight, my friend owns, so tonight's Bullpen Masquerade's gonna be a bash. I've already let him know we're coming in, so maybe something extra will show up. But as always, we're gonna have your contact info. We'll have your LinkedIn, how to get ahold of you, how to learn about Queensland in our show notes. I wanna make sure everyone checks that out, learns more, and really finds ways to connect you with the Gulf South community or the community wherever you are.

And also, I will just mention one last thing. If anyone is ever traveling to Australia, please come and visit our colleagues in Queensland. We've got a head office in Brisbane there. We're more than happy to help curate and facilitate some introductions and some site visits or whatever it might be, whatever you're interested in. We've got great capabilities. Again, tropical health and medicine, infectious disease, oncology are really the 3 big sectors of alignment here, I think.

Well, I imagine if you wanted to get some of your key opinion leaders on, if you wanted to do Bio from the Bayou Down Under, Ian and I might be persuaded to come and produce and host. So, Ian, I don't know how you feel about that. Yes, please. I would love to come to Australia.

That sounds fun. Maybe we could do BIO on the Great Barrier Reef.

We could lay a whole bunch of stuff down in 2 days and do it out. I'm just, you know, he's not mad now. I'm happy.

I'm very happy. Sounds good.

Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it.

Thanks, James. Thank you.

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