CUREator – Australia’s national biotech incubator

CUREator is a national biotechnology incubator run by Brandon BioCatalyst to support and accelerate the development of Australian biomedical research and innovations. CUREator provides grant funding programs targeting biomedical opportunities spanning from discovery to clinical development.

Established by Brandon BioCatalyst in 2021, CUREator is a new approach for bridging the gap between where research grant funding ends and commercial investment begins. CUREator has received $90M in funding from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund and $6M from CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. 

Our incubator supports the preclinical and clinical development of medical research and medical innovation projects via several streams of funding. The program benefits from grant funding delivered with investor insights.

Beyond funding, CUREator works closely with project teams to support them through the early development phase, offering both scientific and commercial expertise and networks to support projects in meeting key commercially oriented milestones.

For more information about CUREator awardees, read here for Round 1 and Round 2 here. 

Funding Round Open for CUREator +

Expressions of Interest (EOIs) for CUREator+ are now open and interested researchers and biotech companies are invited to apply via at https://cureatorplus.grantplatform.com/

EOIs will close on Friday 6th October 2023 at 5.00pm AEDT.   

Funding of $1M to $5M per project is available to support preclinical, clinical and/or commercial development of therapeutics (novel or repurposed), diagnostics, medical devices, and digital health technologies, which includes any intervention that prevents, monitors, manages, diagnoses or treats a disease state, its symptoms or risk factors. 

For more information on CUREator+, including guidelines, visit here.

Programs

CUREator offers multiple streams of funding alongside program support to accelerate promising Australian projects with commercial potential focused on preclinical and clinical stage biomedical research and medical innovations, clinical-stage therapeutics, health security innovations and solutions for minimising antimicrobial resistance. 

Each project supported by CUREator is carefully designed, with clearly defined project deliverables and early go/no-go milestones to ensure they reach completion on time, delivering key value-adding and de-risking milestones during the grant period. Funding is provided with clear milestone-driven tranches and help is provided to guide development of these assets and maximise their chances of success. 

CUREator+ 

Support for novel or repurposed drugs (pre-clinical and clinical), medical devices, and digital health technologies. You can read more here. 

Delivered in partnership with ANDHealth and with funding from the MRFF. 

Preclinical Stream

Supports preclinical medical research or medical innovation projects with commercial potential.  You can read more here.

Delivered with funding from the MRFF.

Clinical Stream

Supports the clinical development of novel drugs, or novel uses for existing drugs with commercial potential.  You can read more here.

Delivered with funding from the MRFF.

Health Security Stream

Supports projects that improve Australia’s preparedness and responsiveness to human health threats.  You can read more here.

Delivered with funding from the CSIRO.

Minimising Antimicrobial Resistance Stream

Supports projects developing technologies which improve the prevention, detection, diagnosis and response to antimicrobial resistance.  You can read more here.

Delivered with funding from the CSIRO.

Preparing Australian innovations for commercial success

CUREator provides its awardees with hands-on support towards milestone achievement, advanced training opportunities, and access to their global network of experts including in-house expertise at Brandon BioCatalyst.

Through CUREator, awardees will benefit from connections to pharmaceutical companies, local and international venture capital firms and institutional investors. These networks, CUREator will assist projects and companies seeking follow-on funding through Brandon Capital or corporate partnerships.

For more information, please contact info@cureator.com.au