Knowledge Transfer and Innovation: How to make it effective, with examples based on NanoCommercializ

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Knowledge Transfer and Innovation How to make it
effective, with examples based on
Nano-CommercializationProfessor Peter
DobsonAcademic Director, Begbroke Science
Parkpeter.dobson_at_begbroke.ox.ac.uk
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What is Innovation?

• Invention happens and IP is created, Patents
  filed etc
• The IP has to be converted into a business or a
  product this is the innovative step.
• Managing innovation is a new and poorly
  understood topic.
• We introduced Enterprise Fellowships to do this
  in Oxford, and in 3 years out of 17 7 started
  companies, and 7 are now full-time Technology
  Transfer specialists

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The Innovation chain
Research
Inventive step Patents
Spin-out company
Innovation occurs here!
Company Expands (sales/marketing)
Partnership(s)
Products purchased
Products B
Products A
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Transfer of Intellectual Property in Oxford
University
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Innovation at OxfordInnovation is what happens
between invention and revenue generation
Said Business School, MBA etc.
Device or materials supplier
Departments
Licence Deal
End-user
Invention by academic
Isis Innovation
Continuing Professional Development
KTN and KTP activities
Begbroke Science Park space and industrial links
Flotation or acquisition
Spin-off Company
OxSec and Venturefest raise awareness
Enterprise Fellowships were created to help start
the innovation activity.
REVENUE
INVENTION
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How do we encourage innovation?

• Enterprise Fellowships (Begbroke)
• Oxford Science Enterprise Centre (Business
  school)
• Courses introduced in the undergraduate
  curriculum
• Creating a new ethos for invention and innovation

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Enterprise Fellowships

• Industrial Research Fellow
• exploit recent research by post-grads/docs
• Business Development Fellow
• assist Isis Innovation team with the above, with
  help from Business School
• Knowledge Transfer Fellow
• work with Continuing Professional Development to
  develop new modular courses in topical key areas.
• All of these were given training and mentoring by
  a team of experts

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2003/4/5 Enterprise Fellowsexamples of the
industrial fellow activities

• Terry Sachlos Formed TEOX Ltd, Synthetic bone
  structures
• Tiancun Xiao Formed Oxford Catalysts plc, novel
  low Temp catalysts
• John Topping Formed MFN, thermal control layers
• Cathy Hua Ye Artificial tissue plans still in
  progress
• Stephen Bell Artificial flavours fragrances,
  license deal
• Jamie Patterson Novel imaging techniques,
  formed Eykona Ltd
• Tim Rayment several patents then joined a
  company
• Wolfgang Denzer formed Oxford Medical
  Diagnostics Ltd
• Chris Padbury filed patents, now works for
  TTP,Cambridge
• John Laczik formed a diffractive optical element
  company.

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2003/4/5 Enterprise Fellows
Business development

• Terry Pollard assisted several industrial
  fellows, moved to Oxford Catalysts now back
  with Isis Innovation.
• Liz Kirbybased in Isis and developed courses on
  IP, now at Reading KT office
• Andrea Mica worked with Isis now with IP Group
  plc
• Giles Dudley Business development with Isis, now
  at Edinburgh Univ Innovation
• Knowledge Transfer
• Stuart Wilkinson NanoBasics and NanoCert
  courses, now at Isis Innovation
• Jenny Knapp ClimateBasics and other courses, now
  at Bristol Univ tech transfer.
• Simon Nee GRID-service course, now in banking..

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During the Innovation Process Can we shrink the
timescale?
This is a complex subject but one key to this is
to establish the market needs and aim for early
revenue generation
Form partnerships with other companies Use toll
manufacturing Use other sales/marketing
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Science Parks in Europe

• Some are pure real estate with provision of
  space and minimal management
• Some are embedded in University buildings
• A trend is for them to be incorporated within a
  University campus setting but fully independent,
  with help provided to companies regarding
  facilities and guidance.
• At Oxford (Begbroke) the latter is our model and
  we are learning more about the optimal solution

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Begbroke Science Park

• Purchased 1998 with 7500m2 lab/office space.
• Initially mainly Materials Dept. and spin-off
  activities
• Has a incubator for spin-off and spin-in
  Companies
• Investment 35M (2005) from University, JIF,
  SRIF, Industry sources
• Prof Peter Dobson Academic Director (2002)

• 6 miles north of Oxford
• city centre

Initial Focus on Advanced Materials,
Nanotechnology and Environmental Technology
Another 9000m2 of laboratory and office space
will be built in the next 3 years
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Begbroke aerial 2008
Centre for Innovation and Enterprise
Advanced Processing Laboratory
Institute of Advanced Technology
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Centre for Innovation and Enterprise at Begbroke
Mixed types of space Flexible terms for
rental Close proximity to world-class Materials
facilities
Further information barbara.allsworth_at_begbroke.ox
.ac.uk
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Institute of Advanced Technology

• Business- focused nanotechnology activities
• New energy technologies, hydrogen/solar
• Sustainable materials technologies, aero/auto
• Environmental management and Water research
• All are University inter-departmental

Focus to be solution driven problem- solving
utilising interdisciplinary teams
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Can we embed industry and business personnel in
University?

• There is a need to define and match expectations.
• The possible benefits for academia are obvious,
  but are there benefits for business?
• Yes, on a collective basis, but remember that
  managers are more focussed on their units
  performance and absence of valuable people is not
  attractive.
• Very difficult for SMEs
• How can we compensate for this?
• What happens next?
• Some very successful examples of visiting
  professors giving very useful course enrichment
  and experience to students.

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Embedding University personnel in Business and
Industry

• Gives new insight for academics
• Do they contribute or are they a drain on
  resources?
• SMEs are likely to be attracted to the idea
• What happens after the attachment?
• My personal experience was life-changing, I left
  Imperial College and joined Philips.
• Others have gone back to academia and undertaken
  more applied research and engaged in teaching
  with more of a business focus

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Outline of Nano-Commercialization

• Introduction to nanoscience and nanotechnology
• Oxonica, a company based on making and designing
  nanoparticles its history and the lessons that
  were learned
• Innovation and the possible routes to
  commercialisation.
• Regulation and safety

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Nano-science vs Nano-technology

• New awareness of chemistry, physics and biology
  especially at the molecular level
• Optimism of what is possible
• Concerns for the impact of scientific research

• Improvements to existing products in terms of
  performance or value
• New functionality paradigms
• Improve our control and understanding of
  processes and life.

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Quantum Corrals works of art but are they useful?
They enable us to visualise where electrons are
in 2-D structures
http//www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm/corral.html
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Nanotechnology Fact or Fiction
Glass that cleans itself
Fact
Safe Sunscreens
Fact
Fact
Less polluting fuels
Fiction
Nanorobots on the loose
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Matching expectations of Scientists and
Technologists

• Scientists view things on a short time scale!
  Their measure of success is simple publications
  in top peer-reviewed journals
• Technologists have a longer, more tortuous time
  scale. Measure of success is to manufacture and
  sell into a market

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How Oxonica started the original vision

• Research on manufacture of luminescent
  nanoparticles in the late 1990s at Oxford led to
  belief that we could offer low voltage
  nanoparticle phosphor materials to the field
  emission display industry.
• This idea was flawed, because industry wanted a
  complete solution and not a small part of the
  solution.
• Note a field emission display needs electron
  emitters, the phosphors, a screen, fully
  integrated into a product.
• Attention was then given to nanoparticle
  sunscreens and diesel fuel catalyst additives.
  The former had strong internal University IP, the
  latter did not.

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Oxonica plc

• University of Oxford spin-out formed 1999 after 7
  years background research
• Focus on Energy, Environment and Healthcare
• Solution Provider ethos
• 2.3M from Angels and DTI awards
• 8.2M from Institutional Funding
• Revenue generating from 2002
• Tailoring nanoparticles for customer
  applications, building revenues based on IP
  generation
• Floated on AIM 20-7-05, market cap. 35M
• Took over Nanoplex (US) 20-12-05
• Deal with a Turkish oil company broke down in
  2007, reduced valuation.
• 40 Employees, strong commercial and industrial
  experience.
• Current shares trade at 20p (September 2008)

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Early Oxonica products
Grown by colloidal solution growth Size-tuning of
optical properties
Quantum dots are still looking for a high value
application!
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Nanophosphor particles Y2O3Eu
Mild anneal
High temperature heating
Detail of surface
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Field Emission Display
This technology did not take off largely
because the emitters were not reliable. It taught
us a lesson Think about providing the complete
solution.
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The early lessons

• Discard the idea of pushing clever nanotechnology
• Try to provide a complete solution to a market
  need
• Quantum dots were fashionable but where is the
  market? (this is true today!)

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Oxonica product pipeline
Phase 0 Idea
Phase 1 Feasibility
Phase 2 Proof of Concept
Phase 3 Scale-up
Phase 4 Pre- commercial
Phase 5 Commercial
Transparent conducting oxides
TCOs for devices
Sunscreens
Early Revenue Generators
Biodiagnostics
New product concepts for Healthcare
Environment
Fuel Emission Catalyst
Printing Inks
Biodiagnostics is risky unless you have
quantified the market need and supply chain
TCOs have become a very important market need
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Cleaning up diesel exhaust with Envirox
Based on a Cerium Oxide nanoparticles dispersed
in hydrocarbon solvent Fuel-borne
additive Nanoscale particle size
20-40nm Extremely high catalyst surface
area Direct addition to diesel fuel Fuel-borne
catalysis Approx. 5ppm Cerium Oxide Low
application rate only 1 litre of Envirox to
4000 litres of fuel No engine modifications
required
Examples of diesel exhaust particles These are
regular carbon particles bound together by thick
unburnt hydrocarbons.
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Envirox Fuel Economy Performance
Hong Kong Field Trial Cummins Engine
Pre-trial period
Trial period
Post-trial period
1.55
1.45
1.35
Fuel Consumption km/litre
1.25
1.15
1.05
Apr-
May-
Jun-
Jul-
Aug-
Sep-
Oct-
Nov-
Dec-
Jan-
Feb-
Mar-
Apr-
02
02
02
02
02
02
02
02
02
03
03
03
03
Additised Group
Unadditised Group
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Has Envirox worked?

• Yes, it has proved its value in conventional
  diesel engines (up to 14 improvement in fuel
  consumption and reduced particle emissions) and
  turbodiesels.
• But, it is not effective in high sulfur content
  fuels (surely sulphur should be eliminated before
  point-of-sale?)
• It may yet find other applications as an in
  situ combustion catalyst

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Optisol TM

• The driver for this product was the evidence
  that most transparent sunscreens in the 1990s
  posed a health hazard.
• Nanoparticles of titania are used so that they
  appear transparent to visible light on the skin,
  but block UV
• The titania is doped in a special way so that it
  does not behave as a photocatalyst (that would
  cause skin damage)
• The new titania particles prevent the formation
  of free radicals and hence the formulation
  lasts much longer in sunlight and protects the
  skin.

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Other thoughts to improve sunscreens (1999-2000)

• Could we convert uv light to visible? ZnO could
  be used as a convertor
• Was the idea of using TiO2 doped to make it
  p-type a general solution?
• Could this be used to make other uv protective
  layers in the paint and plastics industries?

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Titania sunscreen nanoparticles
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New doped titania products

• Enhanced performance for many other cosmetic
  foundation formulations
• Possible use as a uv protective agent in coatings
  and polymers Solacor

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Doped Titania for UV protection
Sunscreen/cosmetics
Paints/coatings
Polymer additive
Establish materials supplier, probably different
for each application
Formulate and sell direct
Partner with established company
Retains control and value, but requires
investment in sales/distribution
Saves investment, makes use of sales/distribution,
but could lose value
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Oxonica, new lessons!

• Make use of core technology to provide solutions
• Provide solutions where there is a market need
• Early revenue generation is essential
• Balance the team, remember sales/marketing, but
  keep a strong technical base
• Collaborate with universities
• Form strategic alliances to speed time-to-market
  and reduce costs

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Overall ConclusionsHow can we speed up
Innovation?

• Never push technology but look for market-led
  solution provision
• Develop a balanced team, especially help with
  sales/marketing, but do not neglect the technical
  team
• Try to shorten the time from invention to revenue
  generation by partnerships
• Treat investors money as your own and respect
  their risk and confidence

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So how do we decide on the optimum route?

• License deal?
• This has advantages for a swift form of revenue
  generation, but it needs careful choice and
  decisions about exclusivity
• Spin-off company?
• Probably the best option for very novel and
  disruptive technology.
• Form partnerships?
• Need to have good reasons access to markets
  could be quicker access to scaled-up
  manufacturing..

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Regulation and Safety

• There are concerns about safety of nanoparticles
  the new asbestos?
• There are responsible programmes to investigate
  these issues, eg NANOSAFE2, DEFRA, ..
• Funding is probably inadequate, and SMEs have
  substantial burden if they mount a programme.
  (Oxonica has done a lot of testing and been
  involved in most of the safety groups)
• There are important implications for founders of
  companies using nano, and in any case, a
  medical application will have to comply with FDA
  regulations (used as the gold standard by many
  countries)

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• Part-time Online
• Postgraduate Certificate in Nanotechnology
• comprising three modules
• The Wider Context of Nanotechnology
• for professionals from any background who wish to
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  nanotechnology
• The Fundamental Science of Nanotechnology
• a more in-depth exploration of the science of
  nanotechnology
• Fundamental Nanoscale Characterization
• providing a detailed survey of characterization
  techniques for nanoscale materials
• For further details contact
  nano_at_conted.ox.ac.uk
•