Research super-centre to help find a cure

The Translational Research Institute (TRI) will be a "one stop shop" for discovery, production, pre-clinical and clinical testing and manufacture of new biopharmaceuticals. It will incorporate a fully functioning scale-up manufacturing facility for the production of biopharmaceutical and scope cell therapeutics.

MMRI Director, Professor Derek Hart said it would be the only facility of its kind in the southern hemisphere and one of only a handful in the world with this capacity not dedicated to a single commercial entity’s needs.

“The facility will link tertiary education, independent medical research and health care across a number of facilities to enable new discoveries to be refined, tested and manufactured with greater efficiency and be available to patients sooner.”

The Queensland and Federal governments have pledged A$100 million to establish the facility.

Benefits of the TRI include:

savings of as much as A$500 million on health care expenses per year
an end to wastage through duplicated research, services and facilities
significant economies of scale in research through greater collaboration
stemming the flow of the "brain-drain" by providing the facilities to retain Australia’s top researchers and clinicians and attract elite scientists from overseas.