Prior to his position with Coridon, Mr Finlayson was Business Development Director of Bio Innovation SA in Adelaide. He has extensive experience in banking and finance, JVs, partnering and licensing. He has licensed technologies to national and international biotech and pharmaceutical companies and been instrumental in the formation of 17 companies.
Mr Finlayson has previously held positions as CEO of Vaccine Solutions Pty Ltd (co-owned by CSL Limited and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research), Executive Officer of the CRC for Vaccine Technology (a $42M joint venture) and began his career in banking and finance with Westpac Banking Corporation.
Coridon was established to commercialise new vaccine technologies developed by Prof Ian Frazer, the developer of the Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine, and his team at the University of Queensland. These technologies were licensed to Coridon by UniQuest Pty Limited, the University’s main commercialisation company. Coridon’s major investor is Allied Medical, a medical technology commercialisation and distribution company whose major shareholder is Fortescue Metals’ Andrew Forrest.
Former Avexa CEO Dr. Julian Chick and Allied Medical CEO Lee Rodne have also been appointed to Coridon’s Board.
Prof Frazer said the new appointments will speed the commercialization of Coridon’s assets. “Neil and the new Board appointees bring a tremendous amount of commercial experience to Coridon and we are very fortunate to welcome professionals of their calibre.”
“Coridon has unique technologies that have the potential to have a great impact on disease control and treatment. Neil and the new Board members will work with us to bring these technologies to market as soon as possible.”
Coridon’s next generation DNA vaccines have the ability to generate more powerful and broad immune responses compared to conventional vaccines. They differ from conventional vaccines in that they can be used as traditional ‘preventative’ vaccines or ‘therapeutic’ vaccines - to treat people that currently have a disease.
Coridon’s proprietary technologies are focused on developing vaccines for a range of infectious diseases and cancers in humans. Product development is currently focused on herpesvirus vaccines.
For further information please contact:
Neil Finlayson, CEO Coridon Pty Ltd +61 403 209 203
Lee Rodne, CEO Allied Medical Limited +61 8 9266 0190
Media: Paul Dekkers Buchan Consulting +61 2 9237 2800 pdekkers@bcg.com.au
About Coridon
Coridon was founded in 2000 as a private unlisted company, to develop and commercialise patented technology for improving immune responses to polynucleotide vaccines developed by the team led by founder inventor Prof Ian Frazer at the University of Queensland and licensed by UniQuest Pty Limited. The company has laboratories within the research facility at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. The company’s overall objective is to utilise its unique optimisation technology to produce prophylactic and/or therapeutic polynucleotide vaccines for a range of infectious diseases and cancers in humans. Product development is currently focused on herpesvirus vaccines.
About Allied Medical Limited
Allied Medical is an Australian based company that is emerging as a major healthcare commercialisation player focused on growing its profitable distribution business providing medical devices and technology to healthcare professionals and building its major interest in Coridon Pty Ltd, developing DNA vaccines for global markets. Allied Medical’s established distribution business consists of innovative and cost effective medical devices and technologies with applications across a broad scope of medical specialties including anaesthesiology, critical care, pain management, infectious diseases, emergency medicine and cardiology. Allied Medical is a major investor in Brisbane based Coridon Pty Ltd, led by Professor Ian Frazer developing next generation DNA vaccines.
