2019 Red Hat Award winners |
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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 get-together, which we call the Peasants Dinner. The 2019 Peasants Dinner was held on Thursday 25 July 2018 at Prime, 8 Rees Street Queenstown. This year 95 Peasants attended, making it a really great night. 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 2019 Red Hat Award winners. For previous years' winners click here.
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Stephen EarlFounder, Acuity Capital
Financier of the Year |
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Stephen Earl is one of the great disrupters of our era from a capital market perspective. The Controlled Placement Agreements which his firm, Acuity Capital, markets to ASX-listed Life Science companies allows those companies to sidestep the broker community completely and raise as much capital as they need at the market price of the stock, so long as that stock is liquid. This revolutionary approach promises great outcomes for companies that are willing to market their stock and not leave that task to brokers who will never understand it as well as company management will. Stephen Earl, a lawyer by background, founded Acuity Capital in 2012 to bring the CPA approach to Australia. Steve has gone about the task of selling his CPAs with the dogged determination.
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Lee RochesterPrincipal, Wexford Hayes
Kiwi of the Year |
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Lee Rochester is one of those helpful people in the biotech and medical device industry who know where to find good talent to build great companies. He currently does that in Sydney, but Lee still calls New Zealand home, having gone to Hutt Valley High School in Wellington followed by Massey University in Palmerston North. Lee has spent just about all his working life in talent sourcing in fields as diverse as financial services and infrastructure, but he has evolved in recent years a strong specialty in Life Sciences. Lee’s practice at Wexford Hayes, where he is a Client Partner, is a great source of information on recruitment issues in healthcare.
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Nick EdeChief Technologhy Officer, Imugene Ltd
Cage Rattler of the Year |
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Many people in the biotech and medical device industry have only one company in them, either through lack of imagination or energy, or through the narrowness of their training. The real ‘cage rattlers’ are the professionals who can make a serious contribution in multiple kinds of companies, across different treatment paradigms and disease conditions. Dr Nick Ede is one such cage rattler for the biotech industry in Australia. Nick didn’t settle for just being a leading authority on peptide synthesis when he ran Mimotopes, he went on to invent a potential new treatment for snoring and sleep apnea at Consegna, and since 2013 he’s contributed to major advances in the field of cancer immunotherapy at Imugene, where he is currently Chief Technology Officer. It’s fair to say that with Nick there’s always plenty of fuel in the tank.
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Lorraine ChiriouCEO, AusBiotech
Best New Peasant |
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Lorraine Chiroiu took the helm at Australia’s peak lobby group for the biotech industry in July 2018. Her educational background isn’t science or medicine, but public relations, which is what our industry could use more of. In Lorraine’s ten years with AusBiotech, first as Chief Industry Affairs Officer and then as Deputy CEO, the sector has had to head off numerous challenges to public funding as successive Federal and state governments question the benefits of backing new ventures that may takes years to give back to the public’s coffers. It’s comforting to know that people like Lorraine are there to remind the politicians and bureaucrats as well as the taxpayers that companies like Cochlear and Resmed is what we are good at Down Under.
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Craig HadfieldCFO, Volpara Solutions
Best Re-Rating, 2019 |
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Craig Hadfield, a mild-mannered accountant who hails from Johannesburg and did his basic training at Wits University, arrived in the New Zealand capital in 2014 and did a couple of years at Deloitte there before joining Volpara in mid-2016, initially as Financial Controller, then as CFO. At the time Hadfield signed on Volpara stock, newly listed on the ASX, was under 40 cents. It’s since been over $1.80. Volpara has had a great few years as the company expands the reach of its breast imaging analytics and analysis products to the US and multiple other markets.
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Janette DixonFounder, Just Partnering
First Lady |
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A long time ago Dr. Janette Dixon was a medical laboratory scientist, but she has since gone in a number of different directions, including restructuring of New Zealand’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, building a diagnostics and drug development companies in Southeast Asia and consulting to various drug development projects. Janette is a proud Kiwi but also calls Thailand and Singapore home.
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Jane LoweFounder, IR Department
Hall of Fame |
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One of the great blessings for investors and analysts interested on the biotech and medical device industry Down Under is the quality of the Investor Relations specialists who serve them. One of the best in the business is Jane Lowe. When you get a call from Jane or her colleagues at the IR Department asking you to look at one of her biotech clients, you know that she’s done her homework on the company, and that, if the company takes her advice, it is on the way to greatness. Jane combines great professional skills with unique personal charm and everyone who works with her or for her only ever has nice things to say about her. Indeed, even her competitors think she’s great. Over the years Jane has been a strong advocate for women in the biotech sector in Australia and New Zealand, and this year at Peasants we honour her as one of the sector’s great assets.
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