UniQuest awarded for Commercialisation Excellence

UniQuest Pty Ltd has won three prestigious Commercialisation Excellence Awards at the Commercialisation Forum and Fair of Ideas held recently in Sydney.

As The University of Queensland’s technology commercialisation company, UniQuest won more awards than any other university commercialisation arm.

UniQuest’s Managing Director, David Henderson said the awards won for the commercialisation opportunity of the Transient Blocking Unit (TBU) and the suite of anti-inflammatory drugs highlighted the commercial success of UQ research.

“UniQuest was awarded three out of the seven prizes for which it was eligible; better than any other university technology commercialisation office. This is a ringing endorsement of the standard of commercial outcomes generated from the UQ catchment,” Mr Henderson said.

The awards held on Thursday, March 27 were presented to Australia’s leading universities and science agencies, which showcased almost 200 cutting edge market-ready technologies.

The TBU that is being developed by start-up company Fultech Pty Ltd was awarded Most Outstanding Australian Research Commercialisation Opportunity in the ICT/Mathematics Field and in the Postgraduate Research Project category.

The Most Outstanding Queensland Research Commercialisation Opportunity award went to the anti-inflammatory drugs being developed by another start-up company, Promics Pty Ltd. The drugs assist in the treatment of diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

The TBU device that protects electrical telecommunication interfaces from voltage surges was also a finalist in the major prize category of Most Outstanding Australian Research Commercialisation Opportunity across all fields.

The $100,000 prize was won by the University of Sydney’s welding fault detection technology. It is the nation’s most valuable award for innovation and is named after Australia’s 1996 Nobel Laureate in Medicine Professor Peter Doherty.

The TBU, developed by former UQ PhD student Dr Richard Harris, is the latest development in the protection for sensitive electronic systems. Dr Harris, who’s PhD work was supervised by Professor Mat Darveniza and Dr Ron Barham, said the TBU was technically superior to conventional protection as it could operate in fractions of a micro-second to instantaneous levels of over-current.

“The TBU performs significantly better, is simpler and will be less costly than conventional surge protection technologies when it is manufactured in volume. It has the potential to be used in every telecommunications line and interface,” Dr Harris said.

The world market for this technology is estimated to be in excess of $2.4 billion.

Mr Henderson said the project had helped cement UniQuest’s position as one of the world’s leading university technology commercialisation companies. A recent report released by the Commonwealth Department of Education Science and Training said UniQuest was performing at world best practice standard.

Media: For more information, contact UniQuest Managing Director David Henderson (telephone 07 3365 4037, email: d.henderson@uniquest.uq.edu.au) or Chris Saxby at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2479, email: c.saxby@uq.edu.au).