Turning good science into successful businesses: The technology transfer systems in the UK and Germany

Abstract

In the biotechnology industries, the technology transfer process serves as a crucial bridge linking public science to commercial enterprise. This paper argues that an effective analysis of technology transfer must move beyond a description of the technology transfer offices, and examine how a nation's technology transfer system is embedded within a broader national system of innovation. With this aim the UK and German technology transfer systems are compared. Important differences exist in the maturity and pattern of subsector specialisation across the two country's biotechnology industries. Germany's relatively late entry into the industry and its new companies' tendency to focus in platform technology and diagnostics segments as opposed to therapeutics (as is the case in the UK) can be linked to the laws governing intellectual property, the incentives for professors and scientists to become entrepreneurs, and the scientific resources available for commercialisation. Given the important differences in the profit and growth profiles of these product segments, the organisation of the technology transfer system together with national factors such as the availability of high-risk finance and skilled managers have a significant impact on the competitive prospects of a country's biotechnology industry.