Medical Countermeasures Program

As part of the HSSA Division, the Medical Countermeasures (MedCM) program has continued to progress novel vaccine, therapeutic and diagnostic technologies that help protect Australia’s defence and civilian populations against a range of CBR threats, infectious diseases and pandemics.

The program currently has eight active projects, developing three vaccine, two therapeutic, one manufacturing, and two diagnostic technologies.

In April, highlights of the MedCM program were presented as part of the DMTC Annual Conference in Canberra. Keynote speaker Dr Anne Collins, Chief Operating Officer of Sementis, presented on the sovereign manufacturing ecosystem, and the technical expertise within the program was featured through presentations from early career researcher Rowan Pilkington, and post-doctoral researchers Dr Aleksandra Debowski and Dr Sanjaya Kc. In recognition of his commitment and the key role he plays as part of his project team, Rowan Pilkington was awarded the Early Career Award. More information on his work can be found on Page 38.

In October, a collaborative team comprising BioCifer Pty Ltd, University of the Sunshine Coast, The University of Queensland and CSIRO were awarded a High Commendation as part of the prestigious Land Forces 2022 Innovation Awards in Brisbane.

In July, at the ADSTAR Summit, the MedCM program received the Runner-up honour in the Enterprise Collaboration award category. This award is recognition of the MedCM program’s dedication to collaboration to build national resilience and develop new sovereign capabilities. More information can be found on Page 4.

With support from Defence’s Next Generation Technologies Fund, the MedCM program ran a call for new projects that focussed on priority themes, namely:

• anti-infective therapeutics, including against antimicrobial resistance

• vaccine products or platform technologies for infectious disease threats, and

• medical countermeasures against chemical threats.

The initial call for Expressions of Interest generated a large response, with submissions received from a wide variety of proponents across the country. Two projects have been selected from the two-stage process to progress to contract discussions.