Victorian Deputy Premier and Minister for Medical Research, Ben Carroll officially opened the newly built Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre (MMIC) within the heart of the Monash Technology Precinct, Clayton in Australia.

Funded through an $8.58 million investment from the Victorian Higher Education State Investment Fund and $4 million from Monash University, MMIC’s expansion to Clayton builds on the Centre’s work based at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) in Parkville to provide further opportunities for innovation across medicine formulation, resolving manufacturing process challenges and building supply of highly-skilled, industry ready candidates for the workforce.

Minister Carroll also announced a grant awarded to MMIC by the Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics (Cumming Global Centre). The grant will fund the development of a potential new therapeutic agent for the treatment of respiratory infections and inflammation, with the aim to help safeguard the community against both existing and future viruses.

Director of MMIC, Professor Michelle McIntosh said the Centre’s expansion to Clayton will deliver far-reaching benefits to the Victorian community.

“This new facility represents a significant advancement in Victoria’s research commercialisation opportunities. Our team of dedicated pharmaceutical scientists are committed to driving forward the end-to-end development of a range of medicines using state-of-the-art technology, from laboratory-scale projects right through to local manufacture of medicines for clinical trials,” Professor McIntosh said.

In addition to the latest Cumming Global Centre grant, MMIC is working on a suite of local and international projects with a range of partners, including Texas-based biotechnology company Etira Therapeutics.

Etira has been working with MMIC since 2021 to synthesise a drug candidate called ‘ERX-315’ to become commercially viable to manufacture for clinical trials. ERX-315 is part of the broader ERX medicine family which has shown to be effective in the treatment of solid tumours including breast, brain, pancreatic and ovarian cancers.

MMIC teamed up with industry partner IDT Australia to manufacture ERX-315 for Phase 1 clinical trials in cancer patients, which is now underway at St Vincent’s hospital.