Outgoing Australian of the Year Alan Mackay-Sim has warned Australia cannot rely on pharmaceutical companies to find solutions for some of society's most devastating health problems.
The 2017 award recipient said he would continue to push for more private investment into biomedical research, with a focus on translating promising lab research into human clinical trials.
Professor Mackay-Sim said the prohibitive cost of bringing drugs to market had caused big companies to shut down medical research programs.
He said Australia could not depend on pharmaceutical companies to solve neurodegenerative ageing diseases, depression or other psychiatric conditions, rare brain diseases and spinal cord injuries.
"I have a dream that we can convince insurance companies and governments to put a dollar value on future health savings from biomedical research and use this to drive the real dollar investment into clinical trials to take new therapies from the lab to the clinic," Prof Mackay-Sim said.
Reflecting on a year of travelling the country talking about the importance of science, Mr Mackay-Sim said the award would give the next winner a chance to advance their cause.
He said it was hard to know whether he had made a real difference to public discourse about science, but felt the satisfaction of a rock making ripples in a pool.
"The ripples keep expanding long after the rock has disappeared," he said.
The 2018 Australian of the Year will be announced in Canberra on Thursday evening.
