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Member News
Autumn 2016
Catalysing Innovation by Exploring New Ways of Collaboration Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst
The key is not being seduced by the science (I’m a ’techno-geek’ from my Amersham days) and focusing on picking winners that have a real chance of translating and being disruptive or game-changing. We stuck to our guns here from the start (and I’m grateful to the Board for backing me), focusing on science and people with an appetite to engage. Once you hit tipping point, the leaders have come and the followers have followed, and you have a ready-made ecosystem that has a similar mind and culture.
Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) is the UK’s first open innovation biomedical catalyst. Describing open innovation as a means of partnering and collaborating effectively, Dr Martino Picardo, CEO of the SBC, talks to One Nucleus. What is Open Innovation and how is SBC helping to deliver it? We have tried not to get bogged down with the terminology but we do follow the Chesbrough model which focuses on partnering and collaborating early enough in the industry/academia/start-up space to make a difference. It is an attitude; we frequently talk about having an appetite to engage and this is one of the biggest entry criteria for the SBC. We want to engage with good science and excellent scientists at an early stage in a way that we can help translate success early and efficiently, or help to stop or re-direct research where appropriate to avoid failing at a late
stage and after investment. It goes well beyond standard out-sourcing and builds on the principle that you can never grow an organisation so big and so efficient that you have the best of everything in one team. You have to partner and collaborate, and we are delivering quantifiable evidence that this is happening here and now.
Now the challenge is to build on that success and continue to raise the bar. In the past four years, we’ve had over £170 million investment in our tenants, which is staggering. I’m now looking forward to IPOs, trade sales and a new therapy or two on the horizon. Getting the word out and keeping the profile high with activities such as Discover Assist (helping early stage projects with advice and mentoring) and our Open Innovation Challenge in the neuroscience
‘Success depends on the quality of the tenants and the value they extract from within the ecosystem’
space has been key to keeping the As CEO, you’ve seen SBC grow motivation high. from concept to very successful reality. What have been the Success depends on the quality main challenges to that journey? of the tenants and the value they extract from within the ecosystem, It has been a really exciting, and specifically working proximally enjoyable journey, and I am lucky to GSK. enough to work with a truly great team. It has also been about the We have initiated a really interesting people and science that I have met project with Lancaster University to and heard about along the way. better-define our business models (Continued on page 5)