👉 Background: A University of Queensland professor developed the technology behind a nifty little app called ResApp. It's designed to listen to people’s cough so it can diagnose illnesses like pneumonia and asthma... And it's working to extend this to COVID-19.

👉 What happened: ResApp did a pilot test on its Covid-detecting tech, and found it worked on 92% of its test subjects with the virus. That caught the eye of pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer, who decided to make a takeover offer of $127 million.

👉 What else: Pfizer promised to give shareholders an extra $53 million if the next trial was a success... But it wasn't. The test results were significantly lower than the pilot study, meaning Pfizer kept its extra dosh. Regardless, UOQ is well and truly on the map.

What's the key learning?

💡 In terms of research performance and commercialisation, Aussie universities are definitely up there. In fact, as of 2018, Aussie unis accounted for 75% of total invention disclosures.

💡After Australian universities create their own innovations, they often spin them out into startups. So far, University of Queensland has licensed over 100 products developed by their researchers, with sales totalling US$16 billion!

💡They ain't the only ones. Think: ResMed developing the first successful CPAP device at the University of Sydney, or Monash IVF research program resulting in the first human IVF pregnancy in history!

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