Medical hub creates healthy business
Locating one of the largest health precincts in the Southern Hemisphere next to South
Australia’s redeveloped convention centre is helping to position Adelaide as a medical
conference capital.
The fourth major building in the
Adelaide BioMed City precinct,
the University of South Australia
Cancer Research Institute, has just
opened while the $240 million SAHMRI
2 building, featuring the Southern
Hemisphere’s first Proton Therapy Unit,
is expected to open in 2020. two years. themes they are focusing on.
These include the 38 th Australian Dental
Congress in May 2019, which could
welcome up to 4000 delegates, and the
Cardiac Society of Australia and New
Zealand (CSANZ) in August 2019. The
CSANZ event will also be held at the
centre in 2021 and 2023. “Any conference organiser coming
here has the opportunity to work with
UniSA and SAHMRI and the University
of Adelaide or anyone in that whole
precinct in terms of getting speakers,
getting delegates and incorporating
tours as part of the program.”
Their presence in the northwest
corner of the Adelaide CBD follows
the opening of the eye-catching South
Australian Health and Medical Research
Institute (SAHMRI) in late 2013 and the
completion of the new Royal Adelaide
Hospital and University of Adelaide
Health and Medical Sciences building
in 2017. Adelaide Convention Centre general
manager Simon Burgess says the
proximity to SAHMRI and its world-
leading heart research had been crucial
in securing the CSANZ deal, and that
having the health hub as a neighbour
along the city’s Riverbank has led to
an estimated 10 per cent increase in
medical conference inquiries. The Adelaide Convention Centre recently
hosted the 12 th AusMedtech Conference,
with more than 300 delegates and
numerous international speakers
gathering for the year’s largest meeting
of the medtech industry in Australia.
Medical conferences now account for
about a third of the newly redeveloped
Adelaide Convention Centre’s business
and it has booked over a dozen medical
conferences with more than 1000
delegates each to be held in the next “If we could choose neighbours that’s
what we would have chosen – the
largest biomedical precinct in the
Southern Hemisphere,” Burgess says.
“What it’s actually done is help us focus
our research, specifically over the key
AusBiotech CEO Glenn Cross says
Adelaide’s Riverbank precinct has the
ideal mix of facilities for hosting medical
conferences.
“In terms of Aus biotech, we’re always
pleased to bring our major conferences
to South Australia, we think the
convention centre and the precinct
around it is world class,” he says.
ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Be sur prised. .
with its connected precincts,
celebrated food and wine and
pristine natural wonders.
To find out more visit:
adelaideconvention.com.au
www.cimmagazine.com Convention & Incentive Market ing, Issue 3, 2018 13