2013 Awards Finalists

Callaghan Innovation: Ovine Automation Consortium.

The Ovine Automation Consortium, known as OAL, embodies research partners and industry in a unique collaboration. At its inception the open forum discussion, with members of 9 different meat companies, 2 research partners, 2 research organisation advisors with support from MIRINZ Inc, jointly owned by the MIA and Beef + Lamb, all contributing to a common goal, was a new approach for an industry that had recently begun to see the value of research collaboration. The research partners are Callaghan Innovation and Milmeq Limited with input from both AgResearch and the University of Auckland. Its success is testament to excellent leadership with focus, vision and the ability to keep a very diverse group on track.

Aldera Health: A collaboration to develop an animal and plant corridor in New Zealand.

Aldera is building scientific capability in NZ through international partnerships and facilitating collaboration across NZ’s research community.

Aldera’s vision is to create a national platform for capitalising on the collective expertise of NZ’s public research organisations and international recognition to develop new solutions that will address New Zealand’s and some of the world’s most prominent animal and plant diseases.

Creating an Animal and Plant R&D Corridor positions New Zealand to be truly competitive on the world stage as an innovative solutions provider for animal and plant health.

Professors William Denny and William Wilson, Co-Directors of Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre (ACSRC) — Auckland University, nominated by UniServices.

Prof. William Denny and Prof. William Wilson have been involved in contract research and commercialisation for over 30 and 20 years respectively, including leadership of the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre (ACSRC).

Commercialisation started with one partnership and throughout the years they have been instrumental in forging long-time and valuable commercial partnerships. Prof. Denny has been an inventor on 27 patent families and Prof. Wilson on 14 patent families within the Auckland UniServices database.

The partnership between Profs. Denny and Wilson is demonstrated in their pioneering work in the hypoxia field, which resulted in Proacta Therapeutics being funded. The ACSRC has spun out 3 companies (Proacta Therapeutics, Pathway Therapeutics and Ruga) that have successfully raised international seed and venture capital investment. The leadership quality of the nominees flows through to ACSRC ethos, motivation and success.

Auckland University of Technology — Growing the New Zealand surf clam industry with the Cloudy Bay Group.

Since 2011, the Cloudy Bay Group and AUT (through Assoc. Prof Lindsey White) have developed a strong collaborative relationship to deliver significant growth for the Group, as well as New Zealand’s seafood industry and fisheries sector.

AUT has built and continues to build expertise and is gaining a national reputation in aquaculture and fisheries research, innovation and development. The output also includes skilled students, who have gained practical experience, and collaboration between different faculties at AUT. Cloudy Bay group benefits by having access to experts to develop new products and processes to allow it to grow its business and compete successfully in international markets.

A mature NZ surf clam industry has been estimated at NZ$300-400 million in export earnings. This collaboration’s strategy seeks to contribute to this projected growth, as well as New Zealand aquaculture industry’s growth plan which aims to increase seafood export to $1b per annum by 2025, through market-led product innovation and exports.

Lincoln University — The New Zealand Seed Industry Alliance.

The partnership between the majority of New Zealand’s leading seed technology researchers and seed companies has played a major role in New Zealand achieving its predominant position within the seed industry globally.

In 2012, at the instigation of industry, this long-standing relationship was formalised through the establishment of The New Zealand Seed Industry Alliance, the aim being to further consolidate the relationship, to intensify the industry-led research it pursues and to ensure continued end-user value through timely and high quality knowledge transfer and product commercialisation.

The Alliance is the seed research community’s and the seed companies’ joint response to the significant challenges faced by the seed growing industry. Its formation has further strengthened the communication lines between researchers and seed companies to ensure market needs are fully understood and reinforced the implementation pathways for delivering timely and effective technology transfer and commercialisation of new discoveries.

Otago Innovation — TOXINZ Success.

Developed over the past 50 years, the National Poisons Centre’s database, TOXINZ, has been widely used by New Zealand clinicians. Now it is gaining the respect of the international medical profession as well. The TOXINZ database, developed at the University of Otago, today contains more than 190,000 documents with comprehensive and up-to-date information on poisonous chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plants and animals.

It is fully referenced, providing treatment pathways, brand names and combination products, removing the need for clinicians to identify individual ingredients and chemicals. It is also easily navigated and contains images to help with the identification of hazardous plants and animals. TOXINZ’s content is maintained 24 hours a day, seven days a week by poisons information staff, with updates made in real time as new information becomes available.

TOXINZ is a world-class, gold standard database with commercial potential. Benefit to New Zealand and worldwide has been demonstrated through subscriptions to TOXINZ currently being sold to Poison Centres, Hospitals, state governments and Health boards. Otago Innovation has leveraged this niche specialised information and to create significant international returns.

Grasslanz Technology Limited — Delivering innovative plant technologies.

Grasslanz has been a success story through the delivery of technologies and products, from the Crown Research Institute science system, to end users both in New Zealand and offshore. Grasslanz Technology Limited was established as a subsidiary of AgResearch in 2003.

Grasslanz invests in the development of proprietary plant technologies primarily delivered through seed and our end users are farmers. It establishes alliances with seed companies to commercialise its products. Grasslanz works with an international network of investors and research organisations to develop innovative new products. Grasslanz success is underpinned by:

• employing a successful commercialisation model based around partnerships and licensing.
• commercialisation of a large number of new forage technologies creating wealth for NZ farmers.
• its core strength of pasture cultivars and endophyte, and successful development of a broader product port-folio with international reach.

WaikatoLink — Bioplastic made from bloodmeal.

In 2007 Dr Johan Verbeek from University of Waikato’s material science research laboratory discovered a method of making biodegradable plastics from bloodmeal. In 2008 Novatein Limited was formed and venture capital firm Endeavour Capital invested alongside WaikatoLink to create commercial opportunities for the technology. From 2007-2012 over 23 researchers at the University of Waikato completed materials science research on Novatein to identify ways in which the material could be manipulated to achieve certain properties and characteristics.

Late 2012 WaikatoLink and Wallace Corporation reached agreement on investment into a new entity to build and expand on the work of Novatein, with the objective of creating a much larger company focused on commercialising polymers and materials from prime industry co-products. The new company, called Aduro Biopolymers, spurred co-development and partnership discussions with two NZ companies and Scion for the development of Novatein products for the NZ and export markets, and the development of new products from other feedstock sources.