Excelligent

Partnership at a glance

• Excelligent P/L (Excelligent) has patented a qPCR test that can detect the presence of neurodegenerative diseases through extracellular vesicles (EVs) in the blood. The research behind the test was primarily undertaken at La Trobe University
• Excelligent’s CEO, Associate Professor Lesley Cheng, has been working on this research since 2012. Professor Andrew Hill – now Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Impact at Victoria University – co-founded Excelligent when he was at La Trobe and is Director and Chair of the company’s board
• In March 2025, Excelligent was announced as one of the first two recipients of financial support from the Eagle Fund – a $1 million grant thanks to the fund’s partnership between La Trobe and government agency Breakthrough Victoria
• La Trobe University is a shareholder of Excelligent, and the university holds a place on the company’s board.

Case Study

World-leading research that means dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases can be detected with a simple blood test up to three years before symptoms appear is gradually being turned into commercial success for an Australian start-up. Excelligent is turning this La Trobe University-based research into a commercial product with huge global potential.

According to Excelligent’s CEO and co-founder, Assoc Prof Lesley Cheng, the research work began around 2010, when it was discovered that biological bubbles found circulating in the blood – called extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are excreted from different cells – shuttle molecular information between cells. Assoc Prof Cheng wondered if, by intercepting EVs, researchers could capture disease-related information that might be used as a diagnostic tool.

“Because I have a clinical research background, I devised some methods to be able to capture EVs in the blood and profile the cargo inside,” she says. “It was quite novel and technically challenging, and that’s why it hadn’t been looked at prior to that.”

Ideal conditions to research

Assoc Prof Lesley Cheng is Head of the Neurodegeneration EV Biology and Biomarker Research Laboratory at La Trobe University, which is part of the La Trobe Research Centre for Extracellular Vesicles – set up by Excelligent’s co-founder and Director, Professor Andrew Hill.

“La Trobe is one of the best places in the country to do this EV work,” Professor Hill says. “It has a concentration of researchers in that area, and it has great infrastructure and equipment for doing this kind of work.”

As the research continued, a simple qPCR test was developed and patented that could detect neurodegenerative diseases such as prion disease, ALS, Alzheimer’s and dementia. Assoc Prof Lesley Cheng began exploring commercial possibilities with the La Trobe business development and commercialisation team, and the University became both a shareholder in – and board member of – Excelligent.

However, although the research was so innovative and sound, timing for the idea didn’t seem right and it was initially hard to attract investors.

“Some investors were initially concerned there’d be limited uptake of a blood test for Alzheimer’s, given the lack of treatments. But we’ve always believed that early insight empowers people to plan, access support, and be ready for emerging therapies,” Assoc Prof Lesley Cheng says.

The main commercial interest came in 2020 from a Chinese biotech company, Carrier Biomed, which licenced the patent in China and is doing ongoing work with Excelligent.

Time is right for commercialisation

In the past couple of years, exciting advances on multiple fronts have put Excelligent in an ideal spot for commercialisation.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved several drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease; the Alzheimer’s Association has recommended blood tests for early diagnosis; and Excelligent received $1 million in funding as one of the first recipients from the $18 million Eagle Fund. The Fund is a joint project of La Trobe University and the Victorian Government’s Breakthrough Victoria to invest in the commercialisation of research and intellectual property stemming from the university.

“It's definitely the key that's got us going,” Assoc Prof Lesley Cheng says of the investment.

“The Eagle Fund gives us recognition for our technology and acknowledges that we do have something that's worth giving to – that there is a market for it, and it's attracted other investors and interest. It gives us validation of what we're doing … I think the Eagle Fund really helps ‘de-risk’ other investors and enables them to have greater confidence in our technology.”

Professor Hill says the funding has been vital to help attract the next round of $5–10 million investment that is needed to meet regulatory approval in Australia, the US, and elsewhere. “It’s developing the devices that are going to be used for the test kit … and trying to get it to a stage that a pathology lab could just take it on and run it themselves.” He says that as a result of COVID testing, qPCR tests are now commonplace. “Most pathology labs run qPCR tests so our technology can plug into the existing equipment that these facilities have.”

Potential for huge impact

Partnering with organisations such as Dementia Australia, Excelligent is aware of the huge potential benefits that early diagnosis for neurodegenerative diseases could bring, particularly as their diagnostic platform can detect the presence of the disease as much as three years before symptoms appear.

Assoc Prof Lesley Cheng says that even without the new drug treatments, patients who know that they have the disease earlier can take actions such as changing diet, exercise or lifestyle to slow the trajectory of the disease.

“Some people just want their financial matters organised or to fit out their home to ensure that when things start to decline and they deteriorate that their home is ready for their disability,” she says. “I think in the next five years, brain health is going to be the next biggest thing, with mental health.

"While our technology was based initially on Alzheimer's disease and dementia, there's been a lot of feedback from our stakeholders to see whether we can expand our diagnostic pipeline into understanding all aspects of brain health.”

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