Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Friday of last week, I had the opportunity to visit the University of the Sunshine Coast—known as USC—Clinical Trials Centre and meet its director, Mr Lucas Litewka, and its staff. The USC Clinical Trials Centre, like the USC's Innovation Centre and the Thompson Institute, is yet another shining example of how the USC is leading the way in identifying needs in our community and filling them with creative innovation.

The folks at USC tell me that they conducted a detailed analysis of the existing clinical trials industry. They found that the overwhelming majority of clinical trial opportunities are available in the major capital cities, while in regions like the Sunshine Coast we suffer from poor coordination across sectors and skills shortages in a highly specialised clinical workforce. The Sunshine Coast has been missing out on as much as 75 per cent of inbound opportunities, like these clinical trials centres, because of its lack of capacity. USC has identified a critical shortage in our region's capabilities, and it has acted to invest in our region's future to make a difference. Importantly, USC has sought to create not only an innovative clinical trials centre but also one which supports regionally relevant research. People on the Sunshine Coast deserve access to cutting-edge treatments and breakthrough therapies that are targeted to them. That is what the centre brings for local people. But, in creating the centre, the university has also created a fundamentally patient-centric institute. In addition to a rigorous regime of informed consent, it is the first clinical trials centre in the world to require all sponsors and researchers to provide trial participants with a summary of the research findings and to thank them in the eventual research publications.

The centre is housed in what we know as a GP super clinic established by the Abbott government. The clinical trials centre brings together a network of 16 local health providers, including GPs, hospitals and specialists, to provide phases 2, 3 and 4 and observational drug and device clinical trials. It has access to electrocardiography, respiratory function testing and neurophysiology and radiology services, and it has its own refrigerated centrifuge. The centre is currently recruiting for a clinical trial into a cutting-edge triple therapy medicine for asthma. They have already completed recruitment for trials into cannabinoidal gel for epilepsy and treatments for osteoarthritis, COPD, emphysema and flu. Their flu trial, conducted by a first-time investigator, recruited 73 patients in just six weeks. As the centre grows and develops, it will actively draw investment into our community from the pharmaceutical industry and hopefully from research teams all over the world.