Page 1 chiasma.org.nz

chiasma.org.nz Auckland, Issue 2, May 2013 Industry Newsletter

chiasma.org.nz Auckland, Issue 3, July 2013

Synapse is Chiasma’s flagship event which will be

held in the Owen G Glenn Building, Business School

at The University of Auckland on August 8, 2013.

Synapse is Chiasma’s premier event which attracts

leading industry professionals, government

representatives, university staff and students will be

meeting to discuss key issues facing the New

Zealand science and technology sector.

Over the past ten years, Chiasma has had leading

speakers from various hi-tech backgrounds who

include Dr Sean Simpson (Founder and Chief

Scientific Officer, Lanzatech), Professor Robert Elliott

(Founder LCT), Brent Robinson (CEO Rakon), Sir Ray

Avery (CEO Medicine Mondiale), Helen Anderson

(Professional Director) , Michael Daniell (CEO Fisher

and Paykel Healthcare) among many other notable

members of New Zealand’s scientific community

have inaugurated and attended this event. We are

inviting you to attend at this premier event and join

us in this process.

By attending your own stall at Synapse, you have the

privilege, to interact with students, members of New

Zealand’s scientific community and researchers

based at The University of Auckland.

Previous attendees have said that the insights

gained from members of staff from the diverse

companies that have exhibited which include Plant

and Food Research, Life Technologies, Fisher and

Paykel Healthcare, Orion Health, Bayer, Douglas

Pharmaceuticals, Baldwins, MSI, Symansis, Alltech,

Comvita, Via Lactia BIosciences among many other

companies have helped them consider various career

opportunities .

This year, Synapse will be bigger and better. We are

accepting 30 companies and we have organised an

exciting line-up of speakers and with room for over

500 attendees, plenty of connections are bound to be

made!

If you are interested in attending, please click and

register at synapse2013.co.nz

Page 2 chiasma.org.nz

chiasma.org.nz Auckland, Issue 2, May 2013

Workshop Science Commercialisation Workshop 27 July 2013

The third workshop of our Careers Catalyst series featured two fantastic speakers, Hans van der Voorn from IZON Science based in Christchurch and Tim Stirrup, a patent attorney at Baldwins. IZON Science is a pioneering nanotechnology firm that has commercialised novel instrumentation to analyse particles at the nano-scale.

As an engineer turned investor Hans was the CEO of Nova

Gas till 2001, before his current role at Izon. Hans

explained the chain-of-thought involved in developing and

maintaining their suite of products which has wide ranging

applications including drug delivery research, virus

quantification and extracellular vesicles.

Next up, we had Tim who explained how an idea can get

patented and explained the difference between a patent,

copyright and other ways one can protect their prod-

uct. Tim took us on a journey highlighting the need to

protect your precious idea and an overview of how

intellectual property law can be applied to the biotechnolo-

gy sector and numerous group discussions around the

marketability and problems that need to be overcome in

order to become world leaders in the field of nano-

medicine.

This workshop provided attendees information on how

businesses can undergo numerous stages of growth and

development and how one needs to be commercially and

scientifically savvy in order to succeed in today’s

competitive science sector.

Site Visit Douglas Manufacturing Site Visit

8 July 2013

25 budding scientists braved the holiday blues and visited

the Manufacturing plant of Douglas Pharmaceuticals

based in Henderson in West Auckland.

Douglas Pharmaceuticals is a pioneering and rapidly

expanding pharmaceutical company that was established

in 1967 and produces tablets and capsules to a wide

range of lotions, creams, suspensions for their product

range and also undertake sub-contracting jobs and offer

their expertise to their client’s product range and for their

collaborative joint ventures. Services they provide include

formulation, method transfer, validation, stability, quality

assurance and quality control and has the skill base to

package in bulk, bottles, blisters, pots and tubes.

The site visit commenced with a brief safety review and

attendees were introduced to Jeff and Chris who spoke

about the extensive process of how a pharmaceutical drug

makes its way onto the shelf and the time taken to

synthesise the soft capsules which was by an extensive

discussion on drug manufacturing, development and

marketing and quality control that is stipulated by

regulatory authorities.

Students were enthralled to see the inner workings of a

manufacturing plant and the attention to detail needed to

achieve high quality benchmarks. There was also a Q & A

session followed by a networking session at their

cafeteria.