Victoria's booming medtech and pharmaceutical sales have helped propel the value of Victoria's exports to an all-time high of $57.7 billion, up 10 per cent in a year.
Victoria's booming export market was testament to the four Victorian companie who received top honours at the 57th Australian Export Awards held in Canberra last night.
And the Victorian Export Award Winners were:
Swisse Wellness – eCommerce
Swisse produces vitamins, supplements, functional food and skincare backed by science and world-class manufacturing standards, using ingredients from nature to help millions of people around the world make the most from life every day.
Swisse was founded in 1969 by Australian entrepreneur Kevin Ring who set off on a quest to explore the world and find the most nutrient-rich ingredients from nature. It's that enterprising spirit that inspires Swisse to continue innovating, challenging convention and exploring new consumer segments and markets.
The Swisse team maintains a tight product portfolio of just over 150 vitamins, supplements, functional food and natural skincare, and constantly refines the range to anticipate and cater to new consumer trends in various international markets and currently exports to New Zealand, Greater China, South Korea, Singapore, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.
Their product range caters to consumers at all ages and stages of life – for example, there is a Vitamin D liquid for babies from birth, age group multivitamins targeted to women and men at various age groups, pre-and post-natal nutritional support for families during life's greatest journey, general wellness aids, and supplements supporting specific age-related health challenges such as osteoporosis in the elderly.
Leica Biosystems – International Health
Leica Biosystems is a medical device company – a global leader in workflow solutions and automation specialising in the design and build of diagnostic and research instruments in the fields of oncology, haematology and life sciences. The company is streamlining otherwise tedious laboratory processes by providing instruments and associated reagents. These instruments are placed at hospitals, private laboratories and pharmaceutical companies in 65 countries.
As the only company on the market to provide instruments from Biopsy to diagnosis, Leica are uniquely positioned to break down the barriers between each of these steps. Leica's vision is to enable patients to get their diagnosis within 24 hours from biopsy, with the aim to save lives.
With a mission of "Advancing Cancer Diagnostics, Improving Lives", Leica Biosystems is an international success story that today produces three of the most recognised and successful diagnostic instruments used in the field of cancer diagnostics.
Having grown from a relatively small design and development business specialising in biotech, Leica Biosystems business has doubled over the past 5 years attesting to the success of their products in the global market and recognising the heavy recurring investment made in research and development to further enhance their position as a major player in anatomical pathology, exporting in excess of 90 per cent of all products designed and manufactured in their Melbourne facility.
Marand Precision Engineering – Manufacturing and Advanced Materials
Marand designs, manufactures and sustains complex engineering structures, tooling and automated production systems that their customers utilise in building their products across the Aerospace, Defence, Rail and Energy industries. The essence of Marand's work is to develop innovative solutions for their customers to deploy and compete successfully in their markets.
Marand's aerospace and defence division has been providing engineered manufacturing solutions to the aerospace and defence industry for over 30 years and is currently exporting aerospace equipment and tooling solutions throughout North America, Canada, the UK, Denmark and Norway. Being one of Australia's largest exporters of equipment and components for the F-35 aircraft, Marand designed and is the sole global source for, the complex equipment used for engine installation on the F-35.
Marand's automation capability, originally developed in support of the automotive industry, is now applied to moving this technology across all their markets. Marand utilises these capabilities to diversify and design and build state of the art turnkey rolling stock maintenance facilities and equipment for BHP and Rio Tinto to support their Pilbara mining operations right through to supporting alternative energy initiatives ranging from producing the first tidal generator to feed directly into the grid.
In 2019, Marand received the Defence Industry Minister Outstanding Achievement award in support of the Global F-35 Program.
Care Essentials – Regional Exporter
Care Essentials Pty Ltd manufactures and sells high quality medical devices, namely Forced Air Warming System, for use in Operating Theatres all over the world. Care Essentials' flagship product, branded as Cocoon, is a Patient Warming machine and forced air blankets used in hospitals across the world.
Cocoon offers continuous warming to patients under anaesthesia during surgery which keeps the patient's body warm. Warming during surgery reduces the chance of infection, increases the speed of recovery and prevents hypothermia. The Cocoon machine when connected to the disposable warming blankets, provides warm and soothing air to patients in the operating theatre.
Care Essentials has also recently developed a patented hand blanket which dilates veins for inserting cannulas to cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy.
Care Essentials are the market leaders in Australia competing with world famous companies such as 3M and Medtronic. Exporting to over 60 countries worldwide, continuous product improvement, innovation, high quality product, superior sales support and competitive pricing have resulted in an average export sales growth of 30% since 2014.
About Victoria's exports
Victoria is home to more than 13,000 goods exporters and has the largest share of Australia's agriculture, forestry and fishing and manufacturing exporters.
Goods exports were valued at $31.1 billion last financial year, boosted by the medical technology and pharmaceutical sector which has seen sales to international markets by companies such as Leica Biosystems balloon by 600 per cent, from $260 million to $1.95 billion, in just three years.
Exports of fruit and nuts also performed well, growing by 43 per cent to $1.4 billion and helped by the removal of tariffs under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
China remains the top destination for Victorian goods exports but major developed economies such as the United States, Japan and Germany provided the strongest 12-month growth, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Services exports, which were valued at $26.5 billion now account for 46 per cent of Victoria's total exports thanks to soaring numbers from international education and tourism, valued at $11.8 billion and $5.4 billion respectively.
Ready to Take on the World?
Through Global Victoria, the Victorian Government provides support for local companies to reach and compete in international markets through specialised training programs, trade missions and online resources.
Victorian businesses can use the free online export-readiness tool, Go Global, to help them achieve their global goals by identifying gaps in capabilities and recommending the next steps to help bridge those gaps.
