Australia plays an important role in the global pharmaceutical industry, and Melbourne is the most significant city in the Australian pharmaceutical market. In addition to being a critical city for biotech research, Melbourne also manufactures the majority of the country’s exported pharmaceutical products and supplies the nearly 6,000 domestic Australian pharmacies with medications.
Because the national population is aging quickly by statistical measures, it is particularly important to the national interest that the companies on this list continue working hard to keep retail and hospital pharmacies stocked. These are the companies making it happen.
Pharmaceutical Companies in Melbourne
- Procter & Gamble
- Moderna
- GSK
- Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited
- Trialfacts
- Natural Medtech
- PPD
- Nutromics
Top Pharmaceutical Companies in Melbourne
GSK is a healthtech company that aims to unite medical science with technology. The company manufactures vaccines for infectious diseases like whooping cough, polio and measles. By 2030, GSK hopes to develop an HIV treatment.
Moderna is a well-known pharmaceutical company that operates an office and manufacturing center in Melbourne. It has an extensive portfolio of pharmaceutical products, including Covid-19 vaccines, treatments for rare diseases and cancer treatments.
Acrux is a medical research company that produces several FDA-approved products. Founded in 1998, it specializes in manufacturing topical products like ointments, gels and lotions. The company is headquartered in Melbourne.
Medtronic develops medical treatments for various therapy fields, including cardiovascular, diabetes and gastrointestinal health. Medtronic is headquartered in the United States but has operated in Australia since the 1970s, with multiple hubs throughout the country.
Aravax is a Melbourne-founded pharmaceutical company that develops treatments for food allergies. According to the company, its technology can reset patients’ immune systems and cure peanut allergies. Aravax currently has multiple food allergy treatments in clinical trial stages.
Mayne Pharma is an Australian company that develops oral drug delivery systems. The company has commercialized various pharmaceutical products nationwide and abroad using its proprietary technology. Some of its products include aspirin and doxycycline tablets, an antibiotic commonly used to treat malaria.
Clinuvel develops pharmaceutical products for skin disorders. Its main research areas include vitiligo, xeroderma pigmentosum in addition to other immune and cerebral conditions. Clinuvel is headquartered in Melbourne but has locations in Europe and the United States.
Natural Medtech is a drug discovery company that manufactures psychedelic medications with potential benefits as treatment for neurological disease and dysfunction. Its research includes MDMA, psilocybin and tryptamines, for which it holds three recent patents. The company has received funding from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation as well as two rounds of VC funding.
Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited focuses on radiopharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer and rare diseases. These therapeutic drugs deliver precise targeted doses of radiation via injection. The Telix product pipeline features urologic oncology treatments for prostate and kidney cancers, neuro-oncology products to treat gliomas and musculoskeletal oncology products to treat sarcomas.
Palla Pharma is headquartered in Norway and provides pharmaceutical manufacturing services to other companies in the healthcare field. It can manufacture active ingredient medication and source high-quality materials for production. Palla Pharma operates a facility in Melbourne.
CSL develops pharmaceutical treatments for bleeding disorders, immune deficiencies and chronic inflammation. The company has over 100 years of medical research experience and operates various brands focusing on specific medical research.
Trialfacts manages patient recruiting for clinical trials in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. It works with biotech, pharmaceutical and research organizations to make sure their trials have appropriate participants and while also staying on budget. The company communicates directly with potential trial subjects to offer them clear, detailed information about the trial process itself and the specific trial in which they are interested.
Mesoblast conducts stem cell research to develop treatments for complex inflammatory diseases. Founded in 2004, the company employs an advanced manufacturing process to produce cryopreserved cellular therapies. The company is headquartered in Melbourne with operations in Singapore and New York.
Amgen is a global pharmaceutical company that develops and manufactures treatments for several diseases. The company focuses strongly on its research and development phase and employs thousands of scientists. However, it has also started using data science and artificial intelligence through its novel protein language model. The model is capable of predicting protein properties and designing therapeutics.
Atmo Biosciences researches gut health and is in the human trial phase for its gas capsule. The company’s product is an ingestible sensing capsule that analyzes the gastrointestinal tract for mobility disorders. It’s headquartered in Box Hill.
Thermo Fisher Scientific is a global medical and pharmaceutical company. It is known for manufacturing lab equipment like centrifuges, cold storage devices and hotplates, but it can also supply antibody products to aid medical research.
Procter & Gamble is a global pharmaceutical and consumer goods enterprise that has been manufacturing drug therapies for nearly two hundred years. The company, which sold off its prescription drug business in 2009, is best known for over-the-counter pharmacy products like Vicks cough and cold remedies and Oral-B dental hygiene products.
Nutromics was founded in Australia and it specializes in diagnostic treatments. Its flagship product is a continuous monitoring device that senses various proteins and hormones to analyze DNA and provide patients and doctors with personalized medical insights.
With a presence in over 80 countries, Cipla is well-known in the healthcare and pharmaceutical space. The India-based company develops 1,500 therapeutic products covering urology, cardiology, infectious diseases and children’s health. Cipla operates a manufacturing facility in Melbourne.
PPD is the clinical research arm of biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific. PPD is a global contract research organization that consults on matters such as trends within the broader pharmaceutical industry as well as patient recruitment for clinical trials and DEI in trial subject selection. PPD has supported over 2,700 trials since 2019, with nearly 500 drug approvals earned in the same time period.
