Office of Industry and Innovation

Applicants for stage 2 funding are required to present the outcomes of stage 1 to the panel of experts and the Office of Industry and Innovation.

The panel is:

Dr. Paul Watt

A leading graduate from The University of Western Australia, Paul Watt completed his doctorate in Molecular Biology at Oxford University before taking up postdoctoral appointments in yeast genetics at Harvard and Oxford. Working in genomic instability, Dr Watt cloned two novel genes SGS1 and PAT1 and characterized the function of these proteins.  SGS1 is the yeast homologue of the human Bloom's and Werner's syndrome genes.  As an Honorary Research fellow at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, he was appointed Adjunct Professor at the school of Paediatrics and Child Health of the University for Western Australia. Professor Watt has published thirty nine peer-reviewed scientific papers (including several which have been cited hundreds of times).

As an inventor on 16 patent applications (including several granted in US and Europe), he has experience commercialising his intellectual property and was the founder of InfaMed Ltd., which is commercialising a drug delivery device which he developed for asthmatic children. This device which has received US regulatory clearance from the FDA and is CE marked, is currently marketed in Australia and overseas by Avita Medical.   Professor Watt is currently CSO and VP, Corporate Development of Phylogica, a public drug discovery company which he founded to commercialise a novel class of peptide being developed by his laboratory known as Phylomers.

Mr Paul Kristensen

Paul Kristensen is the owner and Executive Chairman of Capital Technologies Pty Ltd, a seed capital firm he established in 1986.

Between 1968 and 1978 he was involved as project manager in major nuclear and particle physics research projects at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland and CERN in Geneva and has co-published papers with leading physicists and engineers. For five years he operated his own consulting business in Geneva, involved in research and development management and international licensing. In 1983 he moved to Perth, where he has been a founding director and investor of a number of technology companies, including ERG Limited, Arbortech Pty Ltd, Kinetic Limited, Dynamic Digital Depth, Structural Monitoring Systems Ltd and Add Venture Capital Ltd. He is chairman of DDD Group Plc.

Dr Rob Newman

Rob Newman has established a unique track record as a successful Australian entrepreneur in both Australia and Silicon Valley. He has twice founded and built businesses based on technology from UWA and Curtin University, and both times successfully entered overseas markets.

A PhD student from UWA, Dr Newman was the inventor and co-founder of QPSX Communications Pty Ltd. After selling QPSX to Telecom Australia (now Telstra), he moved to Silicon Valley to gain more experience in building high technology start-ups. He spent 10 years in the US, where he was a senior executive of a highly successful public company (Bay Networks) and went on to found and run his second company, Atmosphere Networks. Back in Perth, Dr Newman has continued to take an interest in various start-up opportunities and has joined Foundation Capital, a leading venture capital firm.

Dr Stewart Washer

Stewart has more than 12 years of senior executive and board experience in commercial technology companies in the healthcare, food, agricultural and environmental sectors. He has raised $25m in private and public shareholder funds and $20m in government funds to invest in his companies.

Stewart was the CEO of Phylogica Ltd, the first commercial spin-out from the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Western Australia and Fox Chase Cancer Centre in the USA. Before this, he was CEO of Celentis for three years and managed the commercialisation of intellectual property from AgResearch in New Zealand, with 650 Scientists and $130m in revenue. During this time he formed and governed a number of successful biotechnology company spin-offs that employed over 100 staff and realised profitable annual product revenues of $30m a year.