Hunter BioTx Group: July 2008

Thursday, July 3, 2008

NEXT MEETING 8TH JULY 2008

HUNTER BIO TX – AGENDA

Tuesday 8th JULY 2008 –
4.30pm – 5.30pm – Establishment Committee – All Welcome
6.00 – 7.00 – General Meeting – All Welcome
Committee Room of the Chancellery – Newcastle University

AGENDA
4.30pm -5.30pm
Meeting with John Coyle
HunterNet to discuss establishment of the Cluster
Outcome:
Agreed to Structure/s to be presented
to General Meeting Attendees

6.00pm -7.00pm
Welcome
New Introductions

Structure Formation
Outcome:
Motion: Structure
Probono Assistance Formation – legal’s / accounting

Membership / Sponsorship Approvals
Outcome:
Motion: Approval of Draft Document for distribution

Draft Strategic Plan – Feedback
Outcome:
Motion: Priority Actions & Outcomes for next round of Funding

Launch / Event / New Round Funding
21st August 2008

Close 7.00pm

REPORT FINDINGS

The Hunter BioTx group has a strong foundation for further growth. For instance, 81.8 percent of
businesses stated that they were privately owned, 58.3 percent stated that they had been in
business for over 10 years and 33.3 percent employed well over 50 persons.

Marketing skills are in need of better utilisation. Only a small proportion of businesses surveyed
utilised newspaper and television and none utilised radio. The majority of businesses utilised in
house marketing strategies such as field staff which may help to explain why so many end-product
users asked the question “What is biotechnology” when surveyed.

Multinational companies and a lack of consumer expertise were primarily seen as threats.
Competitors are seen to be diverse from small, specific units for smaller organisations to larger
multinationals for the larger organisations.

The majority of businesses surveyed reflected healthy organisational outlooks. Most organisations
surveyed viewed themselves as being good to excellent in comparison to their contemporaries.

Some of the latest developments in the Hunter BioTx group organisations surveyed included OH & S
requirements to develop retractables, innovative packaging, environmental accountability,
bioinformatics, vaccine developments and medical devices. Global consolidation was also viewed as
a recent development.

The pricing and supply of raw materials, finance and the time it takes to develop products and get
it passed through TGA were some of the main obstacles faced by organisations surveyed.

It would appear that marketing is an under-utilised factor in the Hunter BioTx group. Overall,
better marketing skills and utilisation would help to alleviate two substantial problems of
multinational threat and recruitment of staff by placing emphasis on marketing not only descriptive
information, but by selling it in the form of university recruitment for education.

Hunter BioTx Group

Thursday, July 3, 2008

NEXT MEETING 8TH JULY 2008

Hunter BioTx Launch 2008

REPORT FINDINGS

Greg Whiteley

Kathie Heyman

Blog Archive

Contributors