Avance Clinical chief executive officer Yvonne Lungershausen said the company was being forced to uproot about 110 staff after the State Government began clearing its purpose-built $12m site bioscience incubator designed to fast-track commercialising South Australian research and development.

Avance Clincial specialises in delivering clinical drug development trials in Australia, New Zealand and North America for international biotechs.

It won a State Government SA Export award in the international health category earlier this year, but Lungershausen said it is receiving no support or consultation about its eviction, along with several other specialist firms, for due to a major upgrade of nearby South Road.

“I certainly as a chief executive officer haven’t had a letter of support to us or one saying it would assist us to find a new location,”  Lungershausen said.

“I don’t think I ever received a letter to say we need to be out of here by ‘x’ date.

“There was no consultation upfront that this was going to happen. I was talking to a security guard and he said ‘when are you leaving?’”

She said the company had recently paid for renovations at the Thebarton building, but was not told that the investment was being wasted.

Avance Medical moved into the precinct in 2019 with 48 staff and has grown to having 270 globally.

Innovation and Science Minister Susan Close confirmed this week that tenants must leave the Thebarton site, with leases expiring by mid-2023.

She said the Department of Infrastructure and Transport would take control of the precinct bounded by West Thebarton Rd off South Rd, and the River Torrens, so it could be “repurposed” when the North South Corridor project next stage began.

The Malinauskas Government has today announced the design of the North-South Corridor’s Darlington to Torrens stage of South Road, taking in areas including Thebarton, Torrensville and Hindmarsh at the northern end.

Close said earlier this week that the state government was working with bio hub tenants to support them moving to new premises.

“Furthermore, extensions for limited periods of time are being considered where impacts to businesses continuity for a tenant are significant,” she said.

Lungershausen said the company had found new premises that were no longer connected to the city’s bioscience precinct, despite the Thebarton site being ideally placed and specifically designed for its tenants.

“These are businesses that are not stagnant, that are growing, that are actually putting South Australia on the map, in the international spotlight, and they are not being supported,” she said.

“I’m a very strong believer in when one door closes another one opens but hell, you don’t want to be uprooting everyone at a time when you want to work hard to retain your staff and at a time of skills shortages.”

A state government spokesman said that in 2021, the former Marshall Government made the decision that it would sell the BioSA site for use on the North-South Corridor Project and Avance Clinical signed a short-term lease with no extension opportunity post mid-2023.

The spokesman said that while a short-term lease extension beyond mid-2023 could have been accommodated, it is understood the company has found new premises and planned to relocate in February 2023 before its current lease expires.

“As the name suggests, the Incubator was established for new and emerging start-up companies and given the three tenants have now evolved into established biotechnology companies, they no longer meet this criteria,” he said.

Lungershausen told InDaily that while the former Marshall Government may have made the decision abut the site’s future in 2021, “as a tenant we had no knowledge of this until early to mid this year”.

She said Avance Clinical signed a short-term lease with no extension opportunity post mid-2023 because: “We were of the view we would have an opportunity to purchase the building as per an expressed intent when we heard it was going for public sale, but this had nothing to do with knowledge of the building being used for the North-South Corridor project”.

“This year, in 2022, we were informed that there was no option to purchase and we needed to find a new home, so of course the lease has not been extended beyond June 2023 as we will be out by then,” Lungershausen said.

She also said the incubator concept had already evolved when Avance Clinical joined the precinct: “We are not a biotech and we were an established growing contract research organisation when we moved in.”