New South Wales (NSW) is the Australian State with the biggest city, Sydney; the Opera House; that gorgeous harbour; and, Australia’s biggest health industry.
The NSW Department of Health ( www.health.nsw.gov.au ) is the State Government agency that administers over AUD $ 7.8 billion worth of health services, and its medical research assets generate significant intellectual property capable of improving patient care. Most of these medical research assets are housed within individual research hospitals which are geographically grouped and administered by eight Area Health Services or separate governance units within NSW.
Pioneering health intellectual property management are two of NSW’s Area Health Services. These are the Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service which includes the Royal North Shore Hospital at St Leonards, and the Sydney West Area Health Service which includes the Westmead and Nepean Hospitals, all of which are research and medical teaching hospitals associated with several NSW universities. At each of these Area Health Services, an Office of Commercialisation has been established for the purpose of managing and commercialising all intellectual property assets. These Offices of Commercialisation were the original idea of Professor Steven Boyages, the Chief Executive of Sydney West Area Health Service and are the entrepreneurial work of a team of executives at Northern Sydney Central Coast and Sydney West Area Health Services, and BioMed North Limited ( www.biomednorth.org ), a partner organisation which resources and manages them.