A Year of Catalysis – a review of the BioNSW’s 2025 Investment Catalyst Activities

Please click above to play a video message from BioNSW Investment Committee Chair, David Atkins

BioNSW’s Investment Committee’s mission is to increase the level of new investment in NSW’s emerging life science companies. This high value sector provides a boost to the State economy while leading to the generation of new life-saving medicines, devices, and diagnostics. While NSW boasts the largest number of active life science companies, BioNSW members are unanimous in that their growth and scale-up would be even more valuable with improved access to investment capital.

The committee’s goal is to (a) help existing capital flow from emerging investors to worthwhile investee companies and (b) increase the total pool of capital, by unlocking existing but sources of capital that might otherwise be hard to access.

2025 saw a focus on bringing investors and investees together to simply catalyse that elusive first conversation. The thinking was that once an investor and emerging company began engaging, the peripheral barriers to exploring potential deals could fall away and the substance of the opportunities quickly becomes clear. This approach doesn’t guarantee an outcome, but it certainly facilitates either a quick “no” or ongoing due diligence.

The committee’s approach was simple and involved organising carefully curated invitation-only events with a strong mix of investors and investees (many of which would be hard to access organically) and include those entities that make it all happen – the enablers. BioNSW enjoys terrific support, and we were fortunate to have fabulous sponsors for the events as follows: Dare Capital, Smartways Logistics, IR Department and Gadens.

We held three amazing events during 2025 hosting a total of 166 guests. Many participants attended all, or at least two events, and overall, the composition was equally split amongst our three types of invitees.

First conversations were held on a grand scale, and deals are being negotiated right now. We are thrilled to have played a part in this. 

Time will tell how successful the year has been as we begin to see new life science businesses emerge, but a huge thank you to all our participants, supporters, and the Investment Committee members and support below for their tireless work in getting the program moving.

Committee members and Associates:

Left to Right:

Matthew Baker, Christian Toouli, Janice Cheong, Brad Walsh, Sush Utpala, carl

Stubbings, Jane Lowe, David Atkins

Summary Picture

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