NT awards first industrial hemp licence
The Northern Territory’s first commerce licence for growing industrial hemp has been awarded.
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3ME Technology launches battery-powered mining vehicle
Advanced battery technologies developer 3ME Technology has launched its latest vehicle – the TRITEV underground mining vehicle. The prototype vehicle, a collaborative project between 3ME, Batt Mobile Equipment (BME) and Tritton Underground (Aeris Resources), is a 20 tonne diesel powered vehicle retrofitted to battery electric. The TRITEV is a loader/integrated tool-carrier suitable for deployment into…
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Repurpose It converts glass waste into manufacturing feedstock
After an eight month operation led by the Victorian Environment Protection Authority, the last truckload of contaminated glass waste from Glass Recovery Services (GRS) has been removed from a site in Melbourne for recycling. Here, Aristos Karavias of waste to resources business Repurpose It takes up the story. According to the Environment Protection Authority (EPA)…
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Bridgewest to expand pharma manufacturing facility
Investment group Bridgewest Group has bought the Adelaide biologics manufacturing plant operated by pharmaceutical group Pfizer and will develop it into a contract drug and vaccine manufacturer. Pfizer, which operates four Australian factories employing 1,000, sold the Thebarton plant for an undisclosed sum to the tightly-held investment group which founded the BioDuro drug manufacturing operations…
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Budget’s $1bn research boost is a welcome first step. Billions more, plus policy reforms, will be needed
The extra A$1 billion funding from January 2021 provides a critical stop-gap. It will help recover some of the lost research momentum. But what will happen after 2021?
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CSL signs agreement to deliver Covid vaccine
Biotechnology giant CSL has signed a final agreement with the federal government to supply 51 million doses of a University of Queensland-CSL vaccine should the drug be proven effective and safe in clinical trials. CSL’s vaccine subsidiary, Seqirus signed the agreement covering the vaccine candidate V451 and will receive an upfront payment from Canberra. The…
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New $20 m research centre hopes to “make computers more capable of understanding us”
A new national research centre at Adelaide will be established with $20 million in initial funding, and is geared to helping Australia capture some of the benefits of the current artificial intelligence revolution.
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ACE-EV gets electric vehicle supercharge in federal budget
Electric delivery vehicle developer ACE-EV has been given a $5 million boost in the federal budget and will move to initial production of its three models of small vehicles in Adelaide. The company, which launched its first locally-assembled vehicle with fanfare in August, received the grant from the Future Fuels Fund administered by the Australian…
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Australian farm robot business among shortlist for international startup competition
Five Australian startups — including a field robotics company and a maker of sustainable packaging based on crustacean shells — have made the shortlist for Rabobank’s international food and agri FoodBytes program.
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New Australian Made campaign supports manufacturers
The Australian Made Campaign Ltd (AMCL) has launched a new ‘Buy Australian Now and support Aussie jobs’ campaign as use of the green and gold Australian Made logo spreads. An extension of its ‘It’s never been more important to Buy Australian than right now’ initiative launched in June, the campaign encourages Australians to exercise their…
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