Melbourne has cemented itself not only as the centre of Australia’s booming HealthTech but also as one of the world’s best start-up ecosystems for this sector, according to the latest Startup Genome Life Sciences Report. The research outcome affirms the city’s status by putting Melbourne among the top 10 per cent for global life science start-up ecosystems in which start-ups in the life sciences have been thriving.
Startup Genome is a leading policy advisory and research organisation for governments and public-private partnerships that gathers entrepreneurship research on over three million companies across 280 cities.
The report cited the city’s vibrant Life Sciences start-up community, which has boomed for the past decade. Currently, Melbourne is home to almost 400 HealthTech start-ups, with 200 in medical and biotech. With one in five Victorian start-ups related to health, HealthTech is the state’s largest sub-sector in the AU$10 billion start-up ecosystem.
The report also noted that 70 per cent of deals in the Oceania life science hubs are made in Melbourne, accounting for about 88 per cent of the amount invested.
Dr Kate Cornick, CEO of LaunchVic – the Victorian Govenment’s start-up agency – said that Melbourne is well-placed to take advantage of a rapidly growing global life sciences market as a result of the city’s rich medical research and educational infrastructure.
“Our global advantages include rapid clinical trials, excellent product service development, an impressive engineering workforce and proximity to Asia in terms of customer base,” Dr Cornick said. “The next few years will be critical for Victoria in terms of how it translates discoveries being made in our labs into commercialised start-ups that can improve global health and boost the state economy.”
The sector is a major driver of jobs in the city as well, with Victorian Healthtech companies added new jobs 55 per cent faster than the already-over performing healthcare sector (+9.7 per cent growth) in 2020.
CBRE also ranked Melbourne as among the top five life sciences hubs in Asia in 2021, as home to five of Australia’s largest independent medical research institutes and two top-ranked universities for biomedical research.
