As Seen in Australiasian BioTechonology Magazine

GOLD COAST HEALTH AND KNOWLEDGE PRECINCT EMERGES AS MEDICAL TRAINING AND TRIALS HUB

WITH WORLD-FIRST FACILITIES, a rapid post-COVID expansion of biomedical capability and new developments, the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct (GCHKP) is fast emerging as an Asia-Pacific hub for medical technologies.

Director Craig Rowsell says GCHKP’s recent biotech surge and $250 million invested in new buildings within the Lumina commercial cluster furthers GCHKP’s standing as Queensland’s leading innovation district. ‘

We’re a young precinct, but our offering has rapidly matured, just as private investment is creating the infrastructure to sustain growth,’ says Rowsell.

Leading the capability growth is the NeuTex Image-guided Surgery, Training and Robotics Centre – the world’s only facility of its kind located outside a hospital and dedicated to training, and research and development (R&D).

Opened in partnership with global healthcare company Philips, NeuTex attracts international specialists to learn the latest neurovascular procedures and trial new devices.

‘If you really want to amplify the number of people who get trained in this technology, [GCHKP] is the type of place you want to do it at as a key Asia-Pacific hub,’ says Dr Atul Gupta, Philips’s Chief Medical Officer for Image-Guided Therapy.

Built around Philips’s multimillion-dollar Azurion image-guided therapy platform, NeuTex innovates using personalised anatomical models 3D-printed in the GCHKP’s Advanced Design and Prototyping Technology Institute at Griffith University.

‘We’re expanding R&D in the neurovascular field while broadening training in other surgical specialties, such as cardiovascular,’ says NeuTex Co-founder Dr Hal Rice. ‘We’re looking to a future of artificial intelligence- and robotics-enabling remote procedures, virtually anywhere in the world.’ Together, Rice and colleague Dr Laetitia de Villiers (pictured) have conducted the largest case load of robotic aneurysm repairs globally.

GCHKP has also rapidly grown its clinical trials offering, including world firsts. Griffith University’s Clinical Trial Unit (CTU) has doubled its capacity in 18 months. Gold Coast Health’s CTU is currently managing 47 trials, involving 562 patients across 24 clinical departments, while Gold Coast Private Hospital is also active.

Griffith’s CTU has successfully conducted more than 50 trials across phases 1 to 4 and various disease states, including rare diseases and healthy volunteer trials. Its commercial client list includes global pharma firms, and the bioscience and nutraceutical industries.

‘The CTU team is passionate about advancing clinician–academic partnerships, and we’re currently supported by 12 Gold Coast University Hospital clinicians across nine trials,’ says Director Evelin Tiralongo.

GCHKP is also home to Griffith’s Institute for Glycomics, a flagship research institute that attracts more than $15 million in annual research income.

Technologies include a vaccine candidate for streptococcal A, a sepsis drug candidate, a gonorrhoea vaccine candidate and a viral-induced arthritis drug. License agreements are in place with biotechs in Australia, Switzerland and China.

The Institute for Glycomics and Griffith’s CTU are central to Griffith’s partnership in the $280-million Translational Science Hub, which was established with leading global pharma Sanofi, along with partners The University of Queensland and the Queensland Government.