Accelerating the commercialisation of breakthrough biology

The university asked us to deliver a three-day programme for postgraduate researchers working on a personalised medicine programme, to teach them about entrepreneurship and to help them understand the commercial potential of their research projects.

We began by having each participant present their research and what the clinical value and commercial potential might be. We selected four ‘interesting’ opportunities that covered the spread of opportunities presented, and formed the participants into teams to work on these. Each team worked on clarifying the need, why it had not been resolved before now, and how the proposed solution matched up against other approaches. 

The teams then worked on understanding how the proposed solution would fit with clinical pathways, industry supply chains and regulatory frameworks. From this they identified the critical information gaps and risks and developed a plan to resolve them.

We then took the participants through a business and financial planning module and worked with them in teams to build roadmaps for development, regulatory approval and commercialistion of their idea.

We ended with a pitch to ‘friendly dragons’. The feedback received was that the projects were now very strong, and could receive proof of concept funding. The programme had delivered on two counts – the participants had learned about the commercialisation process, and a portfolio of commercial opportunities had been created.

Next case study: Building a technology-rich start-up.