Dr Alison Todd is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer and of SpeeDx Pty Ltd; an Australian Molecular Diagnostics company with headquarters in Sydney and subsidiaries in the UK and USA. SpeeDx has an advanced manufacturing facility that produces a range of regulatory-approved, human IVD tests which are sold globally into 17 countries. Alison’s career has focused on developing and commercialising diagnostic tools for tailoring and monitoring therapy for patients with cancer or infectious diseases.
Alison is a serial inventor with over 200 granted patents describing inventions which underpin SpeeDx’s product portfolio. Prior to founding SpeeDx, Alison spent nearly 20 years within the pharmaceutical industry working at Johnson and Johnson Research Pty Limited, Sydney. Alison has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Prime Minister's Prize for Innovation (2022); the Australian Company of the Year (2021); ATSE’s Clunies Ross Award for Innovation (2020) and the Johnson & Johnson Philip B. Hofmann Research Scientist Award (1997).
Dr Peter Spencer has 40 years’ experience commercialising medical products. He has had senior roles in both multinational and start-up medtech companies; facilitated and mentored in several entrepreneurship accelerators; and was a co-founder of AusMedtech, an AusBiotech program. Through his industry roles he has had responsibility for R&D, manufacturing, operations development, regulatory approvals, new business development, fund raising and company governance.
Peter worked with Johnson & Johnson for 14 years in Australia and the USA, managing early-stage medtech innovation investments and has had senior executive (CEO, COO) and non-executive director roles with many public and private start-ups. He is currently a non-executive director of Lusio Rehab Pty Ltd, a company focused on improving adherence to and outcomes from physical therapy rehabilitation programs. Peter is the Maridulu Budyari Gumal SPHERE’s MedTech Innovation Advisor.
Dr John Parker is a medical devices and technology inventor and researcher. He is the founder of Saluda Medical and a former executive director at Cochlear Pty Ltd. With more than 10 years experience as CEO John is a senior executive with considerable experience in the successful conception, research, development and commercialization of technology. He has experience in all aspects of innovation from basic research to product planning, R&D, industrialization, operations management and development and implementation of business strategy.
John is currently the Chairman of Biotechnology startup company Ferronova Pty Ltd, member of the NSW department of health medical device fund expert panel and serves in an advisory capacity for a number of private and public sector organisations. He is passionate about seeing technology move from bench to bedside and assisting the development and growth of the medtech industry in Australia. His contributions to science and engineering have been recognised by the award of the prestigious Clunies Ross Medal in 2010 and Research Australia Award for innovation in 2020.
Prof Laura Poole-Warren AM leads a research group focused on improving interfaces between biomedical devices and tissues, including design and development of novel materials and engineering 3D tissue models for evaluation of device performance. Laura is currently co-chair of the Frontiers Technology Clinical-Academic Group of Maridulu Budyari Gumal l (also known as the Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise or Sphere) and Fellow of four learned academies. She was awarded honours in January 2020 as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to Biomedical Engineering and education.
