RESEARCH:IN TIMES OF crisis, the worst reaction is to do nothing. A more positive approach is to evaluate the collective resources and develop a co-ordinated roadmap that will "join the dots". It's a skill we all developed at school but, once we leave, we seem to forget how to do it. Yet linking up existing elements – or dots - can provide a route from idea to market.
Consider the life sciences. Research-intensive companies in such areas as the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device sectors need significant investments of time and resources to take an idea and turn it into a product on the market. When successful, the rewards to the innovator and partners can be immense. But the probability of success must be balanced with the risk of failure.
To survive in the long term, life sciences needs both risk-positive (entrepreneurial) and risk-averse (established) companies.
Risk-positive firms initiate the development of innovation, while risk-averse companies can take products through the regulatory pathway and then manufacture, market and sell them.
Most of the products being sold by the major life sciences groups were conceived and innovated by entrepreneurial firms that then licensed or sold the partially developed products to one or more multinational companies.
So how can Ireland join the dots in the life sciences sector to create the optimal innovation ecosystem where the risks and rewards of research are spread out and shared? The first step, or dot, is to identify the opportunities. The next is to create an environment that allows entrepreneurial companies to flourish, innovate and co-exist with multinational firms that can take the baton.
All innovation starts with an idea, yet the idea is but one dot on a long journey through a sliding scale of risk reduction towards the ultimate success of an approved product where a clear market opportunity exists.
From the idea, the line moves to the next dot in the life sciences route to market: pre-clinical testing, which is often outsourced to clinical research organisations or to academic institutions. If successful, the next dot is human clinical studies, starting with small groups of healthy volunteers and then moving through progressively larger and more complex studies.
The phase from pre-clinical stage through to early-stage human trials is widely referred to as translational research. It encompasses a number of dots that offer opportunities for smaller and larger companies to work together. With its largely homogeneous population and its highly trained clinical consultants, Ireland is well placed to become a centre of translational research excellence. To fully exploit this, some minor but important dots need to be incorporated into the continuum.
They include effective electronic patient records and additional clinical trial research nurses. Reallocation of the substantial Health Service Executive resource could achieve this at zero cost if managed well.
Finally, once as the emerging product conforms to regulatory requirements, the remaining dots relate to manufacturing, marketing and sales.
All the dots that need to be joined – from idea to global market – already exist in Ireland.
We see this at Sigmoid. Ours is a privately funded, indigenous, research-intensive, innovation-focused company, and our primary therapeutic focus is on the development of novel products for the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases and the development of advanced vaccine and immune-centred technologies.
Ireland is recognised as a home to academic and clinical excellence in these areas, and the experts are eager to engage and collaborate with us.
So the question is: how can Ireland Inc do more to support indigenous, research-intensive, innovation-focused life sciences companies here?
When canvassed, peer companies suggest the following: more resources to support translational research; greater financial support to encourage meaningful interaction between the companies and academics or clinicians; support for indigenous companies to become conduits between academic research and multinational companies.
For these changes to happen, all stakeholders, including the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland, the Health Research Board and other agencies, together with indigenous firms and academics need to understand better how their resources can be coordinated to ensure that innovative produce developed here can compete and thrive globally.
As the indigenous innovation landscape develops, Ireland must be careful not to prostitute its academic research too early in the hope of attracting foreign interest. Instead, supporting Irish successes will encourage others to convert early stage research risk into the commercial successes that we owe the hard-pressed taxpayer.
Most entrepreneurs appreciate the efforts of agencies to attract foreign direct investment but warn this must not be done to the detriment of indigenous companies that have taken significant risks to do their part to create an innovation-focused, research intense, knowledge economy.
Indigenous companies are best positioned to become the conduits of the significant investment the State has made in life sciences research over the past 10 years. Having the confidence and foresight to invest further in indigenous translational research will provide the Irish taxpayer with the best return on that investment and create employment and wealth. The time to join the dots is now.
Dr Ivan Coulter is founder and chief executive of Irish biotech company Sigmoid Pharma, based at Dublin City University’s Invent Centre. Sigmoid is the recipient of the overall 2010 Irish Times Innovation of the Year Award
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