The innovation and commercialization of life science and other deep tech is necessarily a multi-player and long-term endeavor, characterized by many transactions, high costs, and constraining inefficiency.  Today, those geographic regions that are most successful have developed, over extended periods of time, deep relationships and innovation cultures allowing them to overcome organizational and transactional friction.

BioEcosystem Partners (BEP) provides a system-based alternative.  BEP works with organizations seeking to convene innovation and commercialization consortia, helping them create strategic operating systems – programs that build clear and transparent operations, governance, and evaluations for achieving specific commercialization objectives.  BEP expedites the development of new and emerging consortia, and their regional and societal value.

The Opportunity

Transforming life science and deep tech inventions into commercialized products which enhance society attracts the strong interests of many participants across the development cycle.  Eventual success can be highly rewarded in terms of personal satisfaction, organizational recognition, and financial return.  However, the commercialization journey today remains costly, unpredictable, and slow; and when product success does occur, rewards can seem unevenly distributed among contributors.  Commercialization success has therefore become concentrated in certain geographic regions where deep relationships among multiple players have grown over time, allowing familiarity and trust to overcome development uncertainty.

There is a mismatch today between the many geographic regions or virtual ecosystems that receive public funding in life science and deep tech R&D, and those regions most successful at commercializing inventions – raising a fundamental question and opportunity: How can we grow the value, predictability, speed, and inclusiveness of early-stage technology commercialization?

Commercialization is hampered by complexity and fragmentation

Life science and deep technology commercialization is highly complex along three dimensions, all of which are requisite:

1. Multiple diverse organizational participants;
2. Many individual and cumulative point-to-point transactions, and;
3. A long and episodic development cycle where returns are often deferred to “downstream” transactions.

Engaged in the circuitous path between invention and commercialization are many different players – for example, academic institutions, inventors, investors, entrepreneurs, professional services, life science companies, infrastructure owners, and government and economic development agencies.  Each plays a particular role, such as invention, early-stage development, or providing resources for growth.  Driving these players is a wide range of objectives, incentives, and timeframes.

To achieve their respective objectives, these diverse players typically operate through a complex and ad hoc spiderweb of independent and opportunistic interactions.  Academic institutions, for example, may license intellectual property to entrepreneurs.  Startup entrepreneurs may accept equity financing from investors based on holding the rights to patents licensed from a university.  The startup may use government incentives to hire graduates from local universities, and it may rent space from a developer.  And a multinational company may ultimately acquire the startup, to scale and market its product.

These many transactions occur over a long timeframe during life science and deep tech commercialization – often 5-10 years.  Furthermore, the returns associated with the commercialization of a particular technology are often not directly linked to many of the transactions; for example, the original technology license might realize returns in the form of royalties from product sales that only occur after many subsequent development transactions have taken place among additional downstream players.

The net result of many players, long development timeframe, and the fragmented and deferred nature of investment is significant transactional friction that raises costs and reduces speed.  Eventual success becomes serendipitous and almost random.   

The opportunity for more successful innovation hubs

Compared to the many research-intensive academic centers across the United States and globally, only a small handful of regions and associated organizations have been consistently successful at bridging the gap between early-stage technology and commercialized products.  This may be, in part, because of the geographic concentration of unique capabilities, such as inventive laboratories, and specialized infrastructure or workforce.

We hypothesize, however, that even more important to commercialization success has been the development, in certain regions, of long-term relationships and innovation culture among the multiple public and private sector entities required to bring a new product to market.  These deep relationships allow these regions to more effectively overcome the natural fragmentation and transactional frictions associated with life sciences and deep tech commercialization.   

Implied by this is the need and opportunity for a better and more widespread approach to grow commercial value from life science and deep tech technology hubs.  Today, a myriad of innovation hubs, districts, consortia, and clusters throughout the world seek to address the hurdles inherent to life science and deep tech commercialization.  Most of these hubs focus primarily on what is natural and easiest: that is, bringing the players into closer physical proximity by clustering the infrastructure assets into research parks, districts, or incubators.  While physical proximity can certainly create opportunities to build more and deeper relationships, clustering is a necessary – but not sufficient – step for launching and growing new, effective innovation hubs.

The fundamental problem-to-solve at emerging regional tech hubs today is how to better align the objectives, activities, and incentives of diverse ecosystem participants during the prolonged cycle between invention and commercialization.  By extension, we must better integrate the physical proximity and clustering of physical assets (“hardware”) with programs that systemically promote connections, relationships, and partnerships (“software”).  BioEcosystem Partners has learned from direct experience that the solution to this problem is to take an “operating system” approach.

An operating system for innovation ecosystems

Consider computer operating systems as analogy.  With even the most basic device today, one easily navigates an extraordinary breadth of software applications and hardware yielding an enormous range of IT functionality; without ever questioning how components such as screen, keyboard or mouse interact to produce text or shift images.  The operating system provides quick and seamless connections; conversely, imagine the intolerable difficulty of having to control separately each application and hardware device without Windows, macOS, or the like.

Analogous to computer applications and hardware is the wide spectrum of innovation components needed for commercialization, and typically controlled by multiple stakeholders.  These components include organizational leadership and vision, patented or otherwise protected inventions and ideas, entrepreneurs, workforce and expertise, capital, permissive policies and regulations, infrastructure, and market pathways.  Today, these components are managed more-or-less individually by the spiderweb of stakeholder transactions.  Missing is the practical equivalent of an operating system to not only aggregate but also coordinate the many constituents of a powerful ecosystem.

BioEcosystem Partners recognizes that such an operating system can be achieved with a customized set of consortium programs.  Programs describe an explicit set of activities, processes, tools, and governance which stakeholders and participants use to coordinate innovation components such as inventions, capital, and expertise, to achieve a concrete commercialization objective.  The operating system for each regional tech hub will necessarily be customized to that hub’s unique needs, capabilities, and challenges.  

The good news is that customization can usually be done by piecing together modular versions of programs which address common commercialization goals.  Examples include:

• Partnership frameworks for academic collaboration with industry and investors
• Early-stage technology proof-of-concept or proof-of-validation programs
• Engagement platforms for mentors, entrepreneurs, professional services, graduates, students
• Accelerators and incubators for startup launch and growth
• Community talent and workforce development

In our system approach, BEP works with clients to customize and integrate semi-standard program “modules” to emphasize the unique characteristics of a given region, and to achieve that region’s specific commercialization objectives.  While the basic program alternatives are similar, their individual selection and customization depend on the strategy, operations model, and related strengths and gaps of a given tech hub – be it relatively established or aspirational in nature. 

The integrating glue of the tech hub is its operating system which provides a framework and transparent set of “rules” understood by all stakeholders and participants.  It essentially provides and expedites the same alleviation of transaction friction achieved by well-established hubs only after many years of relationship building.

Example of system success: Science Center and QED POC Program

The University Science Center is the oldest science park in the United States, founded in 1963.  A leadership change triggered the refresh and revitalization of Science Center strategy, incorporating regional market research, external benchmarking, and stakeholder interviews.  The operational outcome was a complement of three multi-component programs: the QED Proof-of-Concept Program, Quorum networking forums and events, and the Port incubator.  This synergistic combination catalyzed research relationships with academic institutions across Philadelphia and beyond, boosted tenant demand at existing and new Science Center buildings, and contributed measurably to the economic and community health of west Philadelphia.

The QED POC program particularly exemplified the power and value of a system approach to tech innovation hubs.  Tapping existing and new relationships, QED was the first multi-institutional POC program in the USA.  It provided the operational framework and mechanics for identifying, validating, funding, and translating high-potential life science technologies. 

The QED consortium grew to more than 20 academic institutions, nearly 50 companies and investors, and more than 200 entrepreneurs and industry professionals.  Moreover, it led to the commercialization of many technologies and the creation of several follow-on consortium programs, while earning multiple funding support from the US EDA, other government agencies, and the private sector.

Supporting the system approach to collaborative innovation and commercialization

BioEcosystem Partners is a special resource to organizations who serve, or aspire to serve, as regional leaders in consortium-based organizations.

Examples of BEP clients include:

• Academic institutions seeking practical commercialization through stronger engagement with companies and investors
• Life sciences infrastructure leaders seeking to partner with academic institutions and companies in technology hubs
• Companies and investors seeking to engage efficiently with academic institutions, health systems, and startups
• Non-profit and public organizations seeking to build economic development networks and regional economic health.

The starting point of a system approach to technology hubs is a clear vision and strategy fitting the innovation opportunities, components, and operating requirements of a given region.  Tech hub strategy then drives a well-defined operating model which, in turn, is enabled by its operating system.

The key to tech hub success is combining system strategy with program know-how to “synergize” productive connections, interactions, and relationships across a true innovation ecosystem – elevating the volume, quality, and value of high-potential commercialization opportunities.

BEP is both strategic partner providing domain experience, outside perspective, and thought leadership; and execution partner delivering hands-on support and coordination, to accelerate launch of new innovation programs and initiatives.  BEP delivers a menu of services along the spectrum from strategy formulation and road-mapping, program design and planning, consortium partnerships, and business development.

Thereby, BEP clients position and distinguish themselves as innovation organizations leading regional and/or networked consortia, creating and sharing ecosystem value in the near-term and sustainable long-term.

Rising to the Occasion

Visionary regional leaders can solve the problems which constrain the transformation of life science and deep tech inventions into commercialized products, today.  These innovative organizations will apply a pragmatic system approach that catalyzes connections, relationships, and partnerships across their regional ecosystems – to grow the value, predictability, speed, and inclusiveness of early-stage technology commercialization.

Empowering the many life science and deep tech hubs now engaged in exciting R&D means that the rewards from commercialization and societal impact do not need to remain concentrated in a few geographic areas.  The playing field can be leveled, with far more widespread personal satisfaction, recognition, and financial returns.

© OIC Innovation LLC 2023