'Biotech is recession-proof': Brandon Capital's Nave on Australia's 'sunrise' industry

The head of Australia's largest life sciences investment firm has more than just the prospect of a coronavirus vaccine on his mind when considering opportunities in the biotech sector in a post-pandemic world.

Brandon Capital Partners' managing director, Dr Chris Nave oversees the $700 million Medical Research Commercialisation Fund, which has government and super fund backing and invests in companies that turn innovations from the lab into commercial opportunities.

Nave has been looking for local medical innovations long before anyone had ever heard of 'COVID-19'. For him, cutting-edge healthcare solutions will always be important for Australia.

"Biotech is recession-proof, and we absolutely have companies where COVID has created an opportunity," he says.

"I think any government that is trying to recover from this [pandemic] needs to look at ways to create jobs and biotech is a sunrise industry, it's a jobmaker of the future."

In recent months, Australians have been glued to headlines about the progress of a COVID-19 vaccine. But the past week has illustrated the challenges these projects face along the way.

Last Monday biotechnology giant CSL confirmed it would make 30 million of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines if successful, as well as more than 50 million doses of the University of Queensland's product. By Wednesday, AstraZeneca said it had put the trial of the Oxford vaccine on hold temporarily while it investigated a serious adverse reaction in a patient.

Nave says the Australian government is right to be investing in possible COVID-19 vaccines ahead of time but says the focus should be broadened to back other treatment options too. "I think the government has done the right thing in putting money behind potential vaccines. I think they’re absolutely right, but they also should think of other strategies," he says.

History shows that developing successful vaccines for pandemic-like illnesses can take time even when significant investment is made, he says. "Look at Ebola, a huge amount of resources were put towards Ebola. It was far more dangerous [than COVID-19] and it took them five years to come up with an Ebola vaccine."

The Medical Research Commercialisation Fund is chaired by Bill Ferris and has the nation's top research institutes as members. It is backed financially by super funds including AustralianSuper, as well as CSL and the Australian government. It has invested in Australian companies, which later secured large sales to global pharma businesses, including chronic pain drug developer Spinifex Pharmaceuticals, sold to Novartis in 2015 for an initial upfront payment of $US200 million.

Current investments include Osprey Medical, the ASX-listed kidney disease fighter, and Vaxxas, which is working on vaccination approaches that do not require needles.

Many of the fund's portfolio companies are working on late-stage clinical trials to validate their approaches and Nave says while the cohort will come through the pandemic well, the coronavirus has presented serious challenges.

Pre-revenue biotechs have largely struggled to access government support measures like JobKeeper because it is not possible for many of these businesses to quantify the impact of shutdowns on their companies. Nave says those businesses approaching late stages of research have also been hit.

"For those companies in phase 2 clinical trials and beyond, all those trials had stopped by the second and third week of April," he says.

While many trials are now back up and running, the sector remains cautious about an upcoming capital crunch despite the country's new focus on medical research. While publicly listed businesses have gone to shareholders in recent months to shore up their balance sheets, this isn't as simple for companies with private backers, Nave says.

"I worry about that. A lot of that speculative investment comes from high net worth groups and family offices, they may retreat from the sector.

"They have watched their own conservative portfolios drop 20 to 30 per cent — and so probably their risk appetite and their allocations to biotech will be questioned."

The nation's universities have also been impacted significantly by the pandemic. Nave says on top of mid-stage companies facing funding constraints, the deep expertise held in the university and research sectors could also be at risk."We worry about the universities and the loss of an infrastructure that has been built up for over 100 years," he says.

"The loss of the career scientists who have spent decades in training, you can’t replace overnight. No matter how much money you throw at it, you can't recreate it."

Despite this challenging backdrop, the past six months have shown the importance of Australia having self-sufficiency to face future pandemics, he says.

"One thing I do think [coronavirus] has done is it’s made it clear that having this medical research and translational capability has actually been very important for the country."