More often than not, the Tech Transfer officer meets a biotechnology invention. It can be difficult for us non-scientists to really understand all the science involved.
The National Health Center (US) has created an interesting Graphics Gallery and a wider overview of issues in biotechnology and human health related issues.
Very useful to quickly get up-to-date on terms such as Retrovirus or details of Microscopy.
Well, in Mallorca, of course!
This weblog covers most of the topics of my "Where's the Beef" course - mainly a one-day course. More than 200 professionals have participated in one of these courses over the last 18 months. Here's the announcement of a new version: a week-long training camp:Click here to read more
Commercialisation CAMPus Workshops: 5 days of practical work in Mallorca in March and April 2006
“Where's the Beef” – the course and methodology on Evaluation of Commercial Potential in Inventions and Innovation projects - has been offered to many groups over the latest five-six years. The format is a one-day course covering cases, background theory and methodology, but little time for real exercises and discussion.Based on feedback, I have developed the concept of Beef CAMPus, a whole week concerned with building your own clear-cut action plans about how to commercialise a portfolio of concrete cases. How to build the business case of your own Technology Opportunities, and, as usual, a lot of learning.
Beef CAMPus will be offered on the island of Mallorca, which, apart from its natural beauty and friendliness, is easy and cheap to reach from almost anywhere in Europe. Together with local partners we offer the best training facilities.
The course is developed and managed together with Jacob Bar, the creator of the JBEngine.
NEW: Since Spring 2007 we have re-designed the format - have a look at our new BeefCAMPus website
Earlier today, I wrote an article with the same title: Do Universities sell their IP at too low a price?
I was trying to understand what I see as a new phenomenon, namely the pre-VC fund (managers or maybe only entrepreneurial business angels who won in the past and now are looking for new investments) and used some examples (Imprimatur Capital, Bridgehead Group, Bridge BioResearch).
In another context I read an interesting report which pointed me to PriceWaterhouseCoopers and their MoneyTreeReports.
The MoneyTree Report is a quarterly study of venture capital investment activity in the United States. As a collaboration between PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based upon data from Thomson Financial, it is the only industry-endorsed research of its kind. The MoneyTree Report is the definitive source of information on emerging companies that receive financing and the venture capital firms that provide it. The study is a staple of the financial community, entrepreneurs, government policymakers and the business press worldwide.
The interesting point here is the overall drop in venture capital investment since the "Bubble" burst around 2000 and the trend to see business angels consolidate their activity to move downstream in the funding pipeline, ie. investing larger sums than usual. But it's also evident that the US now also realizes a widening gap between early stage and VC funding.
My interpretation is that the MoneyTreeReport explains why there is space for new types of investors, who take a proactive role to "scout" for new opportunities, fund proof-of-concept stages of devevlopment and then sell on to downstream investors: VCs etc.
I have earlier described - in this blog- how the IP Group in the UK does this brilliantly, or how Cancer Research Technology , also from UK, is a master in scouting for and developing proof-of-concept for its line of research and business.
Imprimatur Capital (IC) started a new line of business around 2005, namely to source IP from universities, fund proof-of-concept work and forward-license inventions to next stage investors. IC has recruited universities in Russia, Ukraine, Baltic States, Singapore and Spain. I met their name in Spain recently and tried to find out more because I see IC as a new trend which is already moving fast in the US (eg-. Bridgehead Group)(their web site doesn't always work), who bought a new Danish start-up company recently. Formerly, I have described how Cancer Research Technology in London works. Also you might wish to study a BioTech group with Danish founders but now based in London: Bridge Bioresearch .
I found (used JBEngine) some documents about IC's mode of work in the east. I note that they get a first right of refusal to commercialise against infusing proof-of concept funding for project in the order of 2-5k....and maybe also larger sums (<10k) (maybe this reflects the "eastern" prices??). First impression: universities pay a high price to commercialise....?
I then went to Companies House in the UK to see their ownership and financial background. The company is controlled by two persons who seemingly won a lot of money in the IT Bubble economy and then decided to invest in new ventures. They must have seen how lucky they were to get out of their individual ventures before the bubble burst?? And saw that portfolio management is better. The two invested 2,5 million € in 2005 and convinced Barclay's Bank and a few other minority investors to drop another 1 million (so it seems from the accounts).
With that money and an option programme they hire some good professionals to go on a "fishing expedition" in universities around the world, assuming that expert due diligence will do the rest (pick winners). Good luck: IC may find itself in another bubble experience soon and/or must attract even more capital to survive.
The model is great, but there is a point of warning to universities who sign up: the money you get for giving away your inventions may just be too small....But there is another even more alarming signals for the many new "Knowledge Transfer Offices" or tech transfer services in universities: for 5-10 years you have now tried to commercialise your universities' inventions but most of you have a low score on actual hits - and consequently spend more money than you cost etc. There is a danger that dismayed rectors will conclude that this business cannot be done inside universities - and, if it's outside, why not sell to companies such as IC.
I have downloaded the Background documents on my BeefBlog (for participants in my Where's the Beef Course).
We (me included, until now) often talk as if there is only a dichotomy between university and industry. Commercial means anything, which has left the university side. But is "commercial" really commercial?
Michael Kenward commented on my article on the "survey" of university commercialisation performance by writing:
A couple of points, do not lump all "European universities" together. In the UK at least it is not true that they have "only recently turned their focus on patents and licensing". You also miss another commercialisation route, the spin-out company. If anything, in the UK at least, this has been an overused option. Licensing can be a better bet. But it doesn't do to ignore spin outs.
Many spin outs, however, are not "commercial" at all! They have been "capitalized" by patient investors, but they don't make a profit. Recently I had an opportunity to review Geron Corp's Annual Reports: the company has "burnt" up to 30 million $ per year for more than 10 years. Look up any seed or venture capital fund and you will see the same picture. In my Danish home town, Østjysk Innovation in its 2005 annual report recorded losses in almost all of its portfolio companies. The same does
the largest Danish innovation fund. These companies are recorded as "hits" or successes in the survey statistics.
Add to this that many of these funds are initially or substantially publicly funded.
Commercial is not - always - commercial. One more reason to be extremely careful in the use of university commercialisation performance comparisons.
Two researchers from UNU Merit have made a report with the title: Developing internationally comparable indicators for the commercialization of publicly-funded research. Their basis for the report is that they have also conducted a survey for ASTP of ASTP members and their commercialization of research results and now they compare the survey and the use of indicators with four other surveys (AUTM in North America, one UK; a Canadian and an Australian survey).
The report got most attention because it concludes that European public research institutes outperform their US competitors on "licences executed" and start-ups created. 
Arundel and Bordoy mention the ProTon Europe Survey (led by my good collaborator from Valencia, Fernando Conesa and his team) but dismisses it because it uses a wrong denominator (academics per institution). It's a pity because that survey and the work behind it tell us that Europe hardly can be compared with the US. A&B see only two ways of how industry can gain from public research: either through formal arrangements involved in patenting and licensing or the "open science" of publications, seminars etc.
European universities have only recently turned their focus on patents and licensing, whereas collaborative and contract research contracts have accounted for the majority of activity and income for many years.
A&B mention insights into this point gained from their reading of research from the Uni of Sussex SPRU. Professor Sodi and before him Keth Pavitt recommended the UK government to be careful about focusing too much on the formal and technology routes of the impact of oublic research on the economy in a wonderful set of articles and lectures: Talent, Not Technology.
Conclusions: PROs should support creation of standardised indicators as is being produced by ProTon Europe and others, but policy makers should remember to take a balanced view on the results. And each PRO could find a group of peers with which to keep close relations in order to monitor their own performance, but be sure to keep their findings a secret! Use it for developing new strategy!
On TII's Innovation Journal I have written an article about how to improve the prospects for commercial success of EU funded projects under FP VII. The basic point is about how the commercial success of a research result mainly depends on the quality of the research- and how I believe that quality in research can be greatly improved by using better peer review in the design of the research project. In short: make better/more literature studies by peers to make sure that research projects are not redundant but that they add genuinely new knowledge. The "publish-or-die" syndrome works against this, because we would get less pages per year fro academia, but nevertheless...
My second point is to leave the researchers alone so they can concentrate on what they are good at. Why must EC funded research projects involve SMEs or industrial associations or members from at least x countries if it doesn't add value to the quality?
The third point is about the use of "accompanying measures consortia" to do all the necessary exercises to ensure better commercialisation.
This is where the topic of this blog becomes interesting. The skills in Beef work are exactly what could/should be employed in the support of better research and better chances of commercialisation .
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