Yorkshire's pre-incubator produces first investor-ready company

York's ancient minster. Picture courtesy York Tourism Bureau

The agency has pioneered a new concept - pre-incubation - in which scientists are able to continue their academic work at the same time as acquiring entrepreneurial skills and shaping up their research for commercialisation.

To date 29 researchers, ranging from PhD students to professors have been awarded £30,000 Enterprise Fellowships. "This allows them to continue to do the day job while taking the science forward to a stage where it can be commercialised and get the skills training they need to be able to set up and run their own companies," says Suzanne Emmett, manager of the BioScience Yorkshire Enterprise Fellowship Scheme.

The 29 researchers were among 50 academics who applied for fellowships when the scheme was set up in 2004. To qualify for funding applicants had to present their research to a scientific committee, explaining the background science and the concept they wanted to commercialise.

"All these people are high-level researchers in their own right. The idea is that the fellowship money is used to develop their science towards commercialisation in a distinct project that is separate from their existing research," says Emmett.

Their respective university employers have to agree to them taking part, but apart from a half day to attend a training workshop all the extra work is done in the fellows' own time.

The training workshop covers business, financial and intellectual property management. Each fellow has a project mentor to provide individual advice, and they can use the grant money to go on site visits to potential commercial or manufacturing partners.

Mentors on the scheme include Gareth Lloyd Jones, a former managing director of Smith and Nephew Group Research, Peter Dettmar, former R&D director of the consumer products company ReckittBenckiser, Simon Ward of the speciality pharmaceutical company York Pharma, and Alan Payne of Kodak's European Research Group.

"The idea is to give the fellows a holistic view of what is required. Many have had entirely academic careers to date and have had no reason to think about commercialising their research before," says Emmett.

The overall aim of the pre-incubation is to take the science to proof of commercial concept and then create a company. First off the production line is Cizzle Biotechnology Ltd, set up by Dawn Coverley of the University of York to commercialise biomarkers of lung cancer in diagnostics and as a target for drug discovery. The company has just been awarded £250,000 from the White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund.

"Cizzle has resolved the IP issues, set up as a company and raised seed money, all within a year," says Emmett. Three other fellows have developed their technology to the point where is ready to license. "It wasn't appropriate in these cases to do go down the spin-out route, but in terms of technology transfer the research got there an awful lot faster than it would without the fellowship scheme."

"There are lots of different enterprise programmes but I do believe this scheme is unique," says Emmett. "It puts the focus on the individual rather than the science. We had three fellows in yesterday to do interim presentations. You see them getting better and better as they bring the new skills to bear. They are different people from when they started the process."