Biotech firm seeks $500,000 to be the catalyst for medical innovations

Australian biotech company Catalyst Medial has revealed it is looking to raise up to half a million dollars in order to commercialise new products from incubators and universities.

Catalyst Medical, which formed in April 2011 and is based in Terrigal in NSW, aims to develop pathways to market for medical device technologies.

In Australia, it is estimated around 350 original patents are filed annually for concepts for new medical devices, but most of these never reach commercialisation.

Catalyst Medical believes these devices – and other technologies being developed in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific – offer ideal commercial opportunities.

Catalyst Medical chief executive Peter Hickey, who has extensive experience in the medical devices field, says there are some great ideas that are ripe for development throughout Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

“We will identify the best technologies and work with our networks to prove the concepts of the technology whilst developing a unique market strategy for the technology,” Hickey says.

The company is seeking to raise between $250,000 and $500,000, which it will use to hire key staff in order to manage distributor relationships and expand the use of its product list.

The funds will also enable Hickey and his management team to closely examine new products from incubators and universities in the Terrigal region, and bring new products to market.

Last night, Catalyst Medical was one of five companies to present at the Wholesale Investor Opportunity and Networking Evening, held at the Melbourne office of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

These events, held regularly, allow investors to speak directly with the chief executives of high-growth companies about their businesses, and discover unseen opportunities in the marketplace.

Catalyst Medical is interested in talking to technology developers, research departments in universities, and current or potential marketers of high quality medical devices.

Hickey says the company’s strategy is “to find the best three to five” of these new medical devices, help develop them and bring them to market.

The company has already taken two products to market, one of which is a keratin-based healing product for wounds, developed in Christchurch.

The other is a new silver-based wound dressing product, which delivers high quality clinical outcomes with “excellent financial returns” for clinicians.

This product has already been launched in New Zealand and is now set for regulatory approval in Australia.

Expansion plans into other global markets are underway for these two technologies under the Catalyst brand, and revenues earned will be used to assist the company’s commercialisation of new technology and intellectual property.

“We are already getting revenue from those products, and the plan now is to use that revenue and turn that back into finding other devices and technologies,” Hickey says.