PRINT THIS PAGE Building viable university spinouts: a VC’s view on three key ingredients for success29/11/2006. Source: Quester.
There are a number of academic role models – such as Sir Tom Blundell (Astex), Professor Bellhouse (PowderJect), and Sir Greg Winter (Cambridge Antibody Technology) – who have recently made their fortunes from commercialising their research, says Quester in this white paper. These individuals and others have stimulated interest across a broad range of scientific disciplines. UK universities are also looking at increasingly novel commercial ways to benefit from transferring technology to the private sector. Some recent creative structures have been noticeable because of their scale and the long term commitments the universities have been prepared to sign up to. Monetising existing university spinout portfolios and Intellectual Property has happened in a few cases – such as the FF&P and Gordon House deal with Imperial - but the more interesting development during the last three years is the willingness of universities to sell part of their future Intellectual Property for cash now. BioFusion, IPSO Ventures, Imperial Innovations and IP Group are examples of new partnership models between the public and private sectors.
It is too early to comment on the long term consequences for the commercialisation of UK academic research, but we expect the trend for innovation to continue. In the rest of Europe different approaches are being tried, such as the LCF Rothschild/Institut Pasteur partnership. Recently, the European Investment Fund has launched a programme to assist in the development of more public/private collaborations.
Given the political importance placed on commercialising academic research in post industrial Europe, we expect to see further novel public and private initiatives being tried. As in any emerging industry failures will occur, but they will not change the need to find new and better ways to commercialise academic research.
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Quester is one of the UK's leading venture capital companies and has been providing equity for growing technology companies for more than 20 years. It manages over £200 million on behalf of major institutional investors, leading UK universities, and three quoted venture capital trusts. Quester invests in the best technology to create world-leading businesses in the software, electronics and life sciences sectors. As well as capital, it brings a wealth of experience of developing high growth companies from early stage through IPO or trade sale.
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