In her powerful and future-focused maiden speech to Parliament, Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah (VIC) laid out a vivid 40-year vision for Australia driven by science, technology and resilient communities. Among the most compelling messages was her call to harness the nation's strengths in biotechnology — and transform it into a sovereign economic powerhouse.
A physician, researcher and health advocate, Senator Ananda-Rajah believes that science-led innovation — from carbon-capturing kelp forests to universal vaccines — will underpin Australia's health and economic prosperity over the next four decades. In her vision for Australia, the Senator imagined her granddaughter working in a "booming biotech sector, making nanoparticles that deliver chemotherapy directly to cancer cells". This hopeful vignette serves as more than rhetoric — it's a call to invest, scale and translate Australia's biotech brilliance into tangible outcomes.
"Biotech, like clean energy, is an area where we are primed for success... But we have the mystery of the missing middle," she stated, referring to the critical gap between research excellence and commercialisation.
Australia's research sector ranks eighth globally and boasts 1,200 biotech companies — but not enough achieve scale domestically without the need to take their ingenuity offshore to commercialise. With sovereign capability now a national priority, Senator Ananda-Rajah advocates bridging this gap to create mid-sized biotech companies capable of global competitiveness — especially in clinical trials, where Australia's multiculturalism offers a unique advantage.
At a time when the global clinical trials market is expected to surge past $700 billion within seven years, the Senator made the case that: "Australia could — should — be a clinical trials destination of the world".
Her insights extend to the human capital challenge underpinning the sector. With over 8,500 PhDs produced annually and only one in six postdocs recommending academia as a viable path, she stressed the need for a diversified innovation economy that supports science careers beyond the university sector. She also exposed systemic inequities — particularly around gender and race — that hinder women-led and minority-founded startups.
As a former AI startup founder herself, Senator Ananda-Rajah didn't shy away from the barriers. "Enabling women, including those with funny names, to sit rather than serve at the founder table means confronting the uncomfortable truth of unconscious bias," she said — an acknowledgement of the structural reforms needed to unlock Australia's full innovation potential.
Throughout the address, Senator Ananda-Rajah's message was clear: science must move beyond the lab to become a pillar of our national economic strategy, public health preparedness and regional development. Her call to action aligns squarely with AusBiotech's policy and advocacy agenda: build sovereign biotech capability, scale innovation, deliver health, economic and national security outcomes, and create enduring, high-value jobs.
"Every single concept in this vignette is grounded in science rather than fiction," she reminded the chamber. "It is a future where advances in science and tech lift up our living standards, making us more resilient, prosperous, and able to withstand whatever the world throws at us."
Senator Ananda-Rajah's speech signals not only a commitment to science, but a legislative intent to support the frameworks — policy, investment and talent — needed to optimise Australia's biotech ecosystem.
