Scientific proposal borrows from Israeli template
TWO members of Melbourne's Jewish community are part of a group that used an Israeli template for a proposal that may shape a new government program to commercialise scientific research.
AHRON SHAPIRO
TWO members of Melbourne’s Jewish community are part of a group that used an Israeli template to prepare a proposal that may shape a new government program to commercialise scientific research in Australia.
David Langsam, editor of the online Biotech Daily, and Alan Finkel, chancellor of Monash University, are two of the eight signatories to the proposal for the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute (CCI) to be submitted by the Biotechnology and Related Industries Leadership (BRIL) group in the coming days.
Included in the 2009 Federal Budget and announced by Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Kim Carr in May, the CCI will deliver a “radical new approach” to commercialising the best Australian research.
As well as supporting commercialisation of research, the institute will support commercial entities and help take their research and ideas to the marketplace.
Langsam said the group’s proposal borrowed heavily from a working commercialisation model with proven success — that of the Office of Chief Scientists of Israel.
Langsam told The AJN the CCI addresses a major worldwide problem in scientific communities: How to fund the process of converting scientific ideas into research, and research into marketable solutions.
“Let’s say you and I come up with a great idea,” Langsam said. “We can do it on the bench in your garage, or my garage, and then we think, ‘All right, let’s see if we can get our cousins, and our family, to put up a million dollars so we can build the first of the prototypes’.”
That is the easy part, Langsam said. But when the prototype doesn’t work and the problems are worked out “We need money to go further,” Langsam added, “we need to raise five or 10 million dollars”.
A government grant promotes the idea to the venture capitalists.
They say, “We’ll put in more money and we’ll make money out of this deal. And that’s basically how it works,” Langsam said.
The CCI that the BRIL consortium envisions would be a “one-stop shop” for matching grants, and other funding, with Australian scientists.
In addition to Langsam and Finkel, the signatories on the BRIL proposal are AusBiotech CEO Dr Anna Lavelle, Bio-Melbourne Network CEO Michelle Gallaher and chairman Dr John Raff, Research Australia’s CEO Rebecca James and director of philanthropy Dr Noel Chambers, and Dr Joshua Funder of GBS Venture Partners.