Commercialisation Outcomes of Government Pre-Seed Funded Life Science Technology in New Zealand

Abstract

The advancement of a life science industry in a Knowledge-based Economy (KE) can be greatly aided through the concerted efforts of important actors of the National Innovation System (NIS). One important role that government, as a NIS actor, plays in enabling life science commercialisation is through the allocation of pre-seed funding to early stage life science projects derived from universities in order to overcome the funding gap that is observed at this phase of commercialisation (Hine & Kapeleris, 2006). It has been said that government funding can lead to an increase in life science commercialisation and growth of the industry (Bartholomew, 1997; Enzing, Giessen & Kern, 2004; Senker, 1996). However, there is a lack of studies that measure the outcomes of government pre-seed funded life science technology in New Zealand. As life science technologies typically take 10 -20 years to commercialise and follow a unique commercialisation pathway, it is necessary to measure outcomes of pre-seed funded projects over an extended period of time using life science-specific milestones (Brown 1997; Cumby & Conrod, 2001; Jaffe, 2002). The purpose of this study was to provide answers to the research question ‘What are the commercialisation outcomes of government pre-seed funded life science technologies in New Zealand’. In order to examine this research question, longitudinal data on 8 Pre-seed Accelerator Fund (PSAF) funded life science projects was collected through secondary sources of information. These 8 projects were analysed for commercialisation outcomes using selected commercialisation strategy, milestone achievement and academic activity indicators as ascertained from the science commercialisation literature. The findings from this study show that, in general, PSAF-funded life science projects have achieved a number of commercialisation milestones that are indicative of successful commercialisation such as patenting activity and attainment of subsequent investment. They also showed that spinning out is a more common strategy for commercialisation than licensing agreements. While these findings lead to the speculation that government pre-seed funding enables achievement of key life science commercialisation milestones, it will need to be validated in future studies that measure the comparison of PSAF funded and non-funded projects. Further longitudinal data analysis on the projects used in this study could also provide the basis for future study as some of the projects were still in an early stage. Using the framework outlined in this study, funding instruments other than the PSAF can be studied in order to analyse their effectiveness in enabling science commercialisation to advance a KE.