Media enquiries: Prof. Nikolai Petrovsky, nikolai.petrovsky@flinders.edu.au
cell phone:
PRESS RELEASE : 1 December 2009
VAXINE WINS PRESTIGIOUS AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION AWARD
Vaxine Pty Ltd, a successful vaccine development company based in Adelaide, has been
awarded the AusIndustry Innovation Award at the Australian Anthill Cool Company Awards
presented in Melbourne. Indeed, not only did Vaxine won the AusIndustry Innovation Award
but it went on to be win the pre-eminent award of the night, being judged to be Australia’s
Coolest Company.
This prestigious award caps off an exceptional year for Vaxine, during which it has also
won
the National AMP Innovation Award at
the Telstra Business Awards, the Small to
Medium Services Award at the SA Export Awards
and was shortlisted as a finalist in the
prestigious USA Vaccine Industry Awards in Washington, USA.
“The
many industry awards won by
Vaxine this year, support Vaxine’s efforts to save
human lives by making its advanced vaccine technologies globally available”, says Dr Nikolai
Petrovsky, Vaxine’s Research Director.
This has been an exciting year of research breakthroughs for Vaxine, with Vaxine
becoming the first company in the world to bring a swine flu vaccine to the clinic, with a novel
vaccine incorporating cutting-edge technologies developed by Vaxine and its US partner,
Protein Sciences Corporation.
The US government recently recognised the exceptional
potential of this influenza vaccine technology with the award of a 150 million dollar contract to
Protein Sciences Corporation
to enable construction of a new pandemic flu vaccine
manufacturing plant with Vaxine partnering with Protein Sciences on this exciting project.
Vaxine owes its success to longstanding support from the US government through the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) following initial start-up funding support from AusIndustry.
“The US government is serious about investing in safer and more effective influenza vaccines
and have shown they are prepared to back non-resident companies such as Vaxine providing
they have the best vaccine technology available” says Dr Petrovsky. “It is unfortunate that
the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) lags so far behind
the NIH in its ability to recognise and fund breakthrough medical advances.
“Unfortunately, in the ongoing absence of Australian government support we may
ultimately be forced to move our vaccine research overseas, closer to our US funding base.
This is sad because it will be just another example of Australia getting left behind in vaccine
development and biotechnology. Australia has a massive import bill for pharmaceuticals and
vaccines and this will only increase if innovative Australian research continues to be driven
overseas by lack of support from Australian government funding bodies such as the
NHMRC.”
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December 1, 2009
NEWS 
