Antisense Therapeutics research director Dr Christopher Wraight and DendriMed research director Dr Raisa Monteiro have won the Advancing BioBusiness award, the major prize being a trip to BIO 2008 in San Diego in June.

The award is a joint scheme between pharma giant Merck Sharp & Dohme and Advance, a not-for-profit network of expat Australians.

The duo will also meet venture capital firms, research institutes and biotechnology entrepreneurs on their trip.

Wraight, formerly head of dermal therapeutics at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, joined Antisense in 2003. The company currently is running a Phase IIa trial of one of its antisense inhibitors for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

Monteiro is a polymer chemist educated at Stanford University who moved to Australia in 2002. She worked as a commercialisation manager at QUT before joining DendriMed, a spin-out from the University of Queensland that is developing polymer-based nanostructures for better drug delivery.