Why can’t Australia make mRNA vaccines? Because we don’t make enough ‘deep technology’ companies

Why can’t Australia make the mRNA vaccines? That’s not actually the right question to ask. The crucial issue is why Australia hasn’t been producing the type of companies that can make mRNA vaccines. Why don’t we produce more start-ups like BioNTech or Moderna – the two companies that developed and brought the mRNA vaccines to market?

Report: manufacturing self-sufficiency levels leave us “precariously dependent”

A new report carried out by Flinders University researchers for the Australian Sovereign Capability Alliance has said the nation lacks a proper national strategy around capability, and recommends a 100-day review of supply chains. The research was carried out by Flinders University’s Australian Industrial Transformation Institute for the ASCA. The latter is led by Martin…

Local space industry is now moving fast, and that’s just as well

By Brent Balinski It’s regular nowadays that you’ll read a report of some milestone Australian bit of space industry news, whether it’s around a satellite deployment, funding round or launch. Just on Friday, the biggest rocket launched from Australia in 40 years — albeit a Taiwanese-made craft — was scheduled to take off from Southern…

Mission takes Aussie space camera into space

By Peter Roberts The RAAF and UNSW Canberra’s M2 satellite mission into low Earth orbit (LEO), reported elsewhere today by @AuManufacturing, is an exciting return to space by Australian space scientists. But it is not only defence and academic scientists that are demonstrating new technological capabilities as Australia re-enters the space domain it all but…