Commercialisation of Moredun Science

Commercial realisation of the outputs of the non-university public sector research has been an important aspect of governmental science and technology policy since the publication of the Baker Report in 1999. One of the main conclusions of that Report was that where opportunities were being identified, there was no source of pre-seed finance to allow their development to the point where they could carry enough credibility for business to embrace them. The government response was to make available funds for which consortia of public sector research establishments (PSREs) could bid to allow them to address the resources gap. Although Moredun has been relatively successful in taking knowledge from laboratory to the field in the form of diagnostic tests, vaccines, scientific services and improved management techniques, it is certainly an aspect of the Institute’s activities that can be improved upon. To help develop our competence and performance with regard to commercialisation two initiatives were put in place in 2004; Genecom Ltd and the Genomia Fund.

Genecom Ltd

In 2004, the Moredun Research Institute, the Roslin Institute and the Institute of Animal Health were jointly awarded more than £800,000 from the Department of Trade and Industry for ‘capacity building’ and a further £390K was awarded from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (through the East of Scotland European Partnership) for the purposes of establishing a central facility to identify areas of individual and complementary competitive strength in research and innovation within the three institutes with a view to greater academic-commercial collaboration. A separate company, Genecom Ltd was established with an over-arching remit of assisting each institute individually and collectively, translate basic studies on animal diseases, health and welfare, gene structure and function, developmental biology and biomedicine into practice.

Genecom’s objective is to propagate a culture of knowledge transfer within the three Institutes, identifying existing but as yet unrecognised commercial opportunity and collaboration and converting research expertise into practical application. Moredun has a strong track record in ‘translational research’ and therefore plays a broad and significant role in the regional and national economy. Genecom will enable Moredun to broaden this role; for example, Genecom has helped Moredun secure funding from the Scottish Executive and Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian to strengthen and develop the Institute’s Functional Genomics Unit and will further assist the Unit in marketing its expertise to the Scottish SME community. To encourage take-up of Moredun’s expertise by Scottish and UK business, Genecom aims to widen Moredun’s outreach by proactive engagement at conferences and one-to-one meetings with potential partners. Genecom will also support the Institute’s scientists in applying for seed-corn funding to take research to the stage necessary for commercial engagement to be achieved and in protecting Intellectual Property (IP) and negotiating on behalf of the Institute to optimum effect.

Contact: Patrick McCarthy, Genecom Ltd

The Genomia Fund

Early in 2004, the Office of Science and Technology (OST) confirmed support amounting to £1.5M for a seed and pre-seed fund, the Genomia Fund, described in a proposal led by Moredun. As well as Moredun Research Institute, the Fund targets the complementary skills of the Institute for Animal Health, the Roslin Institute, the Rowett Research Institute and the Scottish Agriculture College in their research programmes on animal health and production. The OST money has been further supplemented by £0.6M from ERDF.

There is an increasing recognition that the steady economic growth and urbanisation of developing countries is set to fuel a massive growth in demand for meat, eggs and dairy products. The need to increase efficiencies and improvements in animal health and production in order to meet this demand, as well as the scope for applying the merging technologies to human health and well-being has the potential to create important opportunities for the members of the Genomia consortium. Genomia’s raison d’être is to make available pump-priming funds, and access to business support mechanisms, to allow Moredun and its sister institutes to take advantage of these opportunities. It seeks to

make available early stage investment funding: targeting the three stages of transferring technologies being developed by consortium members into the commercial arena. The first stage involves an assessment of the technical feasibility and market prospects for what may still be an ill-defined concept. The second involves technical proof of concept and the framing out of exploitation strategies, while the third supports transfer of the technology for others to convert into a commercial reality - a stage in which the institute will still have an important technical role to play.

Genomia’s objectives are unashamedly commercially focussed. It aims to invest in propositions which have the potential to make sufficient returns through royalty streams or capital growth in spin-out companies to allow it, eventually, to become self-sustaining and consequently, able to invest in new emerging opportunities. Yes, its portfolio will have failures, and yes, it is a long-term play. But, given a fair wind, we hope to be able to report on some substantive successes in future annual reports.

Contact: Dr Keith Winton , The Genomia Fund