"Despite a relatively strong public research base, the ability of Australian companies to develop and commercialise scientific discovery is generally weak. The start-up of fledgling businesses is expensive and commercial opportunities are often sold prematurely to produce a necessary injection of funds. There is little support for creation of small business infrastructure. In sales or licensing agreements, Australian medical biotechnology enterprises are often in a weak negotiating position as they do not have the level of corporate experience available to the larger partner. There is a lack of good business management expertise and a lack of good accounting and legal advice relevant to the medical biotechnology sector. Although some of the larger firms are starting to develop this expertise, Australia is still a long way behind Europe and the US. Thus, for a variety of reasons, many of Australia's smaller and medium sized biotechnology companies are constrained in their ability to grow and thereby prevent Australia from capturing Strategic Partnerships with Industry - Research and Training Scheme supports collaboration between universities and industry."
"This paper was prepared by an independent working group for PMSEIC. Its views are those of the Working Group, not necessarily those of the Commonwealth full economic returns from the resources, both capital and intellectual, vested in its fundamental research institutions."
