"Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, biotech companies are getting more attention than usual,
including in this year's Federal Budget.
Under the 2021 budget, companies that patent medical research and biotechnology in Australia
will receive a corporate tax rate reduction from 30% to 17% to encourage innovation.
Lorraine Chiroiu from AusBiotech says they have been lobbying for this change for nearly a decade.
"I think the pandemic has brought biotechnology to the forefront. The importance of vaccines,
ventilators, diagnostics, all of these things in our domain has become extremely important to
health "We should be looking at the policy levers now for biotechnology and making sure
they're fit for purpose for decades to come."
The full details of this patent-related plan have yet to be revealed, but the changes have been widely
welcomed by the industry.
Dr Andrew Nash from CSL Research said the scheme would make
Australia more competitive with countries such as France, the UK and
Germany, which already have similar incentive for. products right here in Australia.”
Steven Yatomi-Clarke from Prescient Therapeutics says
it will take longer for people to feel the benefits of the program.
“The reason is because patents often take a long time to research
and develop, resulting in accumulated losses.
So it will be much longer before tax reduction policies come into play.
For example, patents can be created relatively quickly
over a period of several years. But the time between that and commercial
exploitation could be 10 years or more.”
However, he believes this reform will make Australia more attractive
to the international biotech industry.
"What I think could be beneficial in the short term is to attract
foreign companies that are actually operating
in Australia to generate some of their IP here, that
can contribute to an rich innovation. Instead of just being a commercial outpost where they're selling drugs developed overseas into Australia, they can develop some of that technology right here."
