2018 Red Hat Award Winners

By Stuart Roberts, Senior Analyst, stuart@ndfresearch.com, +61 447 247 909 (May 2018)

The Bioshares Biotech Summit is arguably one of the world's best Life Sciences investment conferences. Traditionally at Bioshares, held every winter in Queenstown, New Zealand, there has been an opening night dinner for the CEOs of biotech and medical device companies who are attending. Beginning in 2014 the rest of us have had our own knees-up, which we call the Peasants Dinner. The 2018 Peasants Dinner will be held on Thursday 26 July 2018 at Saffron, in Arrowtown, about 20 minutes out of Queenstown. Peasants gives the Life Sciences community of Australia and New Zealand a chance to acknowledge some of its rock stars through the annual Red Hat Awards, which represents significant contributions to the growth of the sector by the rank and file. Here are the 2017 Red Hat Award winners. For previous years' winners click here.

Otto Buttula

Financier of the Year

Otto Buttula helped build the boutique funds management business Investors Mutual and the online financial services pioneer Investorweb before the latter company was sold to the Commonwealth Bank in 2007. Since then Otto has chosen to become an active investor in Life Science companies such as Oncosil and Imugene. Our sector relies on hard nosed true believers like Otto to fund the growth ambitions of its startup companies at the fragile early stage of their development.

Gavin Clark

Director, Research and Enterprise, University of Otago
Kiwi of the Year

New Zealand is one of the world's emerging Life Science powers, and in good measure it is because of people like Gavin. Since he joined the main tech transfer office at the University of Otago in 2012, that venerable institution, which is a Top 200 University globally, has grown research income by >20%, invention disclosures four-fold and commercialisation deal flow two-fold. This year's Red Hat for Gavin also acknowledges the vital role that tech transfer professionals play in making our sector world-class.

Krystal Evans

CEO, BioMelbourne Network
Cage Rattler of the Year

Once upon a time Krystal was a malaria vaccine developer at the prestigious Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. However she cares a great deal about how benchtop research can translate into outcomes for patients, and understands that the commercial end of the game is often where the real action is. Since joining the BioMelbourne Network in 2014 Krystal has helped transform that organisation into a strong advocacy group for one the world's greatest Life Science clusters, talking to powerful people in both the Victorian and Federal governments about what can make biotech in Melbourne even more productive than it already is.

Lusia Guthrie

Former CEO, LBT Innovations
Best New Peasant

Lusia is a great Elder Statesperson in our sector. She spent 13 years at the highly successful Adelaide-based pharmaceutical company FH Faulding & Co before following her dream and co-founding the laboratory tools company LBT Innovations in 2004. In 2016, not long after Lusia stepped down as CEO, LBT gained FDA approval of its APAS Automated Plate Reading System, a breakthrough in automated culture plate reading, interpretation and reporting.

Kilian Kelly

Vice President, Product Development, Cynata
Best Re-Rating, 2015 and 2017

In 2017 the stem cell developer Cynata (ASX: CYP) was the company represented at Peasants whose stock had risen by the greatest amount in the twelve months since the previous dinner. This had already happened once before, in 2015. Accepting the Best Re-Rating Award on Cynata's behalf was Kilian Kelly, Vice President of Product Development. Irishman Kilian Kelly was a veteran of Amgen and AstraZeneca before his arrival Down Under. Kilian is emblematic of the sort of talent we're attracting to our sector from other parts of the world.

Mark Paulson

Partner, Jones Day
Hall of Fame

Australia and New Zealand are a long way away from the US, where a lot of the really big action is for the biotech and medical device industries. That doesn't stop this IP litigator, based in Washington, DC, from coming down to our part of the world every year to check out what is going on. Mark Paulson is really good at what he does. So good that in June 2004 he was featured in a Washington Post article headlined 'Wanted: Legal Superstars'. We are glad to have this friendly and quietly spoken American as a member of the Life Sciences fraternity in Australia and New Zealand.