Best Life Sciences Companies in South Australia, Australia
The 40 best Life Sciences companies in South Australia, Australia in 2026, ranked by funding and momentum. Funding, investors, founders, valuation, tech stack and live signals. Top: Bionomics.
Our analysis of 576 Life Sciences companies
$91.7b in tracked funding; 70% of the stack-profiled cohort runs cloud-native; funding activity peaked in 2025.
Ranked: Best Life Sciences companies in South Australia
| # | Company | Disclosed funding | Last round | Stage | Founder | Founded | Tech stack | Patents & IP focus | Recent signals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bionomics Developing therapeutics for cancer and central nervous system disorders using proprietary drug discovery… | $108M | 27 mo ago | Public | — | 1996 | — | 436 patents Small-molecule CNS therapeutics for anxiety, pain, and receptor modulation | — |
| 2 | Ellex Develops products for the treatment of eye diseases | $48M | 106 mo ago | Acquired | — | 1985 | — | — | — |
| 3 | Micro-X CNT based X-ray imaging systems | $47M | 8 mo ago | Public | — | 2011 | Webflow EcommerceWebflowGSAP+15 | 53 patents Advanced X-ray imaging and high‑current field‑emitter technologies for medical diagnostics | — |
| 4 | BiomeBank Developer of microbial therapies to treat diseases | $11M | 44 mo ago | Series B | Sam Costello Co-Founder & CEO | 2018 | Cart FunctionalityWordPressApple iCloud Mail+29 | — | — |
| 5 | Carina Biotech Provider of immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer | $11M | 48 mo ago | Series A | Justin Coombs Managing Director | 2016 | WordPressMySQLPHP+20 | 24 patents Ovarian cancer diagnostics/therapies and CAR‑T cell purification and engineering | 1 partnership · 1 award |
| 6 | Ferronova Provider of magnetic probe based device of treatment of multiple cancer | $9M | 8 mo ago | Series A | — | 2016 | WordPressMySQLPHP+22 | — | — |
| 7 | TGR BioSciences Specializes in immunoassay technology | $2M | 252 mo ago | Acquired | — | 2001 | WordPressMySQLPHP+7 | 48 patents Multiplex lateral flow immunoassays for simultaneous analyte detection | — |
| 8 | Fertil Provider of micro-3D printed pod for the treatment of infertility | $2M | 55 mo ago | Seed | Marty Gauvin Co-Founder | 2020 | — | — | 1 award |
| 9 | fertilis Fertilis is a company that make in vitro fertilization (IVF) less stressful and more successful for patients… | $2M | 55 mo ago | Seed | — | 2019 | — | — | — |
| 10 | National Cardiac Monitoring Develops a wearable device for cardiac monitoring | $580K | 87 mo ago | Acqui-Hired | Paul Diperna CEO | 2011 | — | — | — |
Top 12 Life Sciences companies in South Australia
#1
Public · Adelaide, South Australia · founded 2011 · 109 employees$46.7Mraised▾
Micro-X develops, manufactures and markets a variety of of ultra-lightweight, mobile x-ray imaging systems for medical and security applications. Its flagship product includes "NANO", a mobile X-ray system (Pending FDA 510(k) Clearance) for portable chest, ICU, orthopaedic and pediatric imaging. The company is also working on another product called as ROVER for use in military deployed medical facilities and Backscatter Imager system for stand-off imaging of Improvised Explosive Devices.
- Dec 2025Post IPO$6.2M
- Feb 2021Post IPO$30.5M
- May 2017Post IPO$10M
#2
Series A · Salisbury, South Australia · founded 2016 · 10 employees$9.1Mraised▾
Ferronova provides a magnetic probe-based device of treatment of multiple cancer. The device is patented and composed of iron and iron oxide nanoparticles for treating head, neck, breast cancer, and melanoma. It is a tracer system and ultra-sensitive magnetometer which helps in lymph node identification, which helps in cancer treatment and identification of nodes injection site.
- Dec 2025Series A$6M
- Jan 2023Series A$5.6M
- Jan 2023Grant (prize money)$2.1M
- Apr 2020Series A$3.5M
#3
Public · Thebarton, South Australia · founded 1996 · 7 employees$107.9Mraised▾
Bionomics engage in discovery and development of therapeutics for cancer and diseases of the central nervous system. Has small molecule product development programs in the areas of cancer, anxiety, memory loss and pain. Its oncology approach includes cancer stem cell therapeutics. Its technology platforms include MultiCore, a diversity orientated chemistry platform for the discovery of small molecule drugs; ionX for the identification of drugs targeting ion channels for diseases of the central nervous system; Angene, a drug discovery platform which incorporates a variety of genomics tools to identify and validate novel angiogenesis targets (involved in the formation of new blood vessels); and CSC Rx Discovery, which identifies antibody and small molecule therapeutics that inhibit the growth of cancer stem cells. These platforms drive Bionomics' pipeline and underpin its established business strategy of securing partners for its key compounds.
- May 2024Post IPO$70M
- Feb 2021Post IPO$17.4M
- Sep 2012Post IPO$10.4M
- Sep 2009Post IPO$10.1M
#4
Acquired · Adelaide, South Australia · founded 1985 · 171 employees$47.7Mraised▾
Ellex develops ultrasound system for ophthalmologists to diagnose and treat eye diseases. They offer products for selective laser trabeculoplasty, Canaloplasty, Vitreolysis, Capsulotomy, Photocoagulation, Retinal Rejuvenation. Ellex acquired the canaloplasty business of US-based iScience Interventional in 2014.
- Nov 2017Post IPO$24.4M
- Dec 2016Post IPO$10.3M
- Aug 2016Grant (prize money)$2.5M
- Apr 2016Post IPO$5M
#5
Series B · Thebarton, South Australia · founded 2018 · 22 employees$10.7Mraised▾
Developer of microbial therapies to treat diseases. It offerz BiomeBoost, a drug that contains microbes for the treatment of recurrent or refractory Clostridioides difficile infection. The company has a platform that combines microbiology, machine learning, and bioinformatics for the discovery of microbial biomarkers, leads, and targets. It also collects stools for the research and development of microbial therapies.
- Dec 2022Series B$10.7M
#6
Series A · Adelaide, South Australia · founded 2016 · 17 employees$10.6Mraised▾
Provider of immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. The company is developing an effective broad-spectrum chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy to treat solid cancers. They have produced a pan-cancer CAR-T cell (CNA1003) that can kill solid cancers in vitro including high incidence cancers and rare and pediatric cancers.
- Aug 2022Series A$5.2M
- Sep 2021Series A$5.4M
#7
Seed · Adelaide, South Australia · founded 2020$2Mraised▾
Provider of micro-3D printed pod for the treatment of infertility. The company develops pod that allows fertilization, embryo culture, and embryo cryopreservation to occur in one structure.
- Jan 2022Seed$2M
#8
Seed · Adelaide, South Australia · founded 2019 · 14 employees$2Mraised▾
Developer of vitro fertilization technology designed to automate cell culture with micro medical devices. The company's technology standardizes and automates the IVF process to protect the embryo and changes automated subtle to the nutritive composition of the formulated solutions, enabling medical professionals to grow the embryo inside its own patented micro-3D printed pod providing the most optimized growth environment ever developed.
#9
Acquired · Adelaide, South Australia · founded 2001 · 11 employees$2.2Mraised▾
TGR BioSciences specializes in immunoassay technology and provides solutions for cell-based research applications. Its flagship product, SureFire is used for high throughput analysis of phosphoproteins using a no-wash, bead-based technology. SureFire provides a toolbox for measuring endogenous signalling proteins in a homogeneous format and there are 60 SureFire kits currently available, each measuring a different cell signalling target. TGR has also launched CaptSure that is a one-wash ELISA platform with manufacturing and user advantages.
- Aug 2005Series A$2.2M
#10
Acqui-Hired · Glenelg, South Australia · founded 2011 · 29 employees$580.1Kraised▾
Develops a wearable device for cardiac monitoring. Liba3 is a multi-function 4-1 monitoring device that includes mobile cardiac telemetry, wireless cardiac event, holter, and extended Holter monitoring in a wearable patch. The device comes with hardware, software (cloud-based physician diagnostics and reporting), and a monitoring system. As of Jan'18, Liba is undergoing pre-market review by FDA.
- Jun 2019Seed$580.1K
#11
Acqui-Hired · Thebarton, South Australia · founded 1999$40Kraised▾
The Pipette Company manufactures high-precision micropipettes for the manipulation of gametes and embryos for human IVF applications. The company's product range include specialized off-the-shelf as well as customised pipettes for biopsies, cutting, DNA injections, holding, and stem cell injections.
- Jul 2011Grant (prize money)$40K
#12
Public · Adelaide, South Australia · founded 2004—raised▾
LBT Innovations Ltd is a designer of advanced technology solutions for the medical industry. Its first product, MicroStreak, was a global first in the automation of the culture plate streaking process. Its second product, the Automated Plate Assessment System(APAS) is based upon LBT's intelligent imaging and machine learning software and remains the only US FDA-cleared artificial intelligence technology for automated imaging, analysis, and interpretation of microbiology culture plates following incubation.
Funding & investor landscape
Notable founders
Market landscape — 10 sub-themes by coverage
Share of Life Sciences coverage by sub-theme.
Regulatory-risk over time rising
Funding & growth over time
funding rising · growth rising
How research on Biotechnology is moving in Australia
A read on the academic research around Biotechnology — which themes are gaining ground, the institutions and researchers driving them, and how the tone is shifting. Based on 861 Australia-affiliated papers.
- University College London67
- The University of Queensland63
- The University of Melbourne59
- Agriculture and Food54
- La Trobe University35
- Mutant2→11
- Genome1→7
- Immune system1→5
- Antibody1→4
- Mitochondrion2→4
- Gene5→17
- Immune system2→13
- Antibody1→10
- Messenger RNA1→10
- Mutant1→9
- Agriculture5→19
- Sustainability3→8
- Emerging technologies1→4
- Resistance (ecology)3→6
- Bacteria2→5
Where biotechnology is researched across Australia
Location clusters by institution affiliation — each city's volume, stance tone, and a quick read on its hot topic, what's advancing, the opening opportunity, and the main concern.
Common questions
Rohit lives in the feed. He covers what's moving right now — the funding rounds, launches and shifts breaking across the trade press — and ties them back to where the sector is heading.