Biotechnology YES

SULSA is sponsoring the Biotechnology YES (Young Entrepreneurs Scheme) in 2011.

It is organised jointly by the University of Nottingham Institute for Enterprise and Innovation (UNIEI) and the Business and Innovation Unit at Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). It is an innovative competition developed to raise awareness of the commercialisation of bioscience ideas among postgraduate students/postdoctoral scientists.

Student participants are encouraged to formulate business ideas in teams, and whilst all the members of a team are usually based in one University, in 2011, a team comprising students from across the SULSA Universities has been created. Below is their account of taking part in the competition.

Part 1a - 13 July 2011 - The Planning Starts

Part 1b - 13 July 2011 - Setting Up a Team

Part 2 - 10 October 2011 - The Product Ideas Evolve

Part 3 - 9-11^th November 2011 - Scottish Finals  

13 July 2011 - Nathaniel Jones (University of Glasgow) attended the programme briefing session with Susana Moleirinho (University of St Andrews).

On Wednesday, July 13, Susanna and I travelled to Nottingham for the Biotechnology YES briefing session. Held at the modern and sleek Business School at the University of Nottingham, we were soon bombarded with phrases such as “price to earnings ratio”, processes such as cash flow projections and differentiating between business angels and venture capitalists. We would both admit to not knowing much about this field (at least for now!). We received briefings on the competition, a session on finance for life scientists by Simon Mosey and also heard from previous winners of the competition. A very interesting talk was given by Prof. Barrie Hayes-Gill of the University of Nottingham and Monica Healthcare Ltd. which was very eye opening about the level of work, time and financial investment that must be placed into a successful biotech enterprise. Although we are representing SULSA as the “official team”, we quickly bumped into fellow SULSA student Faye McLeod of Glasgow University who has also entered in another team. The session left us with no illusions as to the level of detail and commitment we now have to apply to the competition, similarly it gave us a framework with which to assess our ideas for the competition. As much as it was daunting it also hinted of the fun that could be had and the rewards we could gain. It was great to meet some of the other contestants and “size-up” our competition! We must now begin to develop our business plan for the Edinburgh based workshop where we will compete in November. More details on company name and product range to follow!

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13 July 2011 Faye McLeod is a SULSA student who is competing as part of the University of Glasgow team. Read her account below.

I was introduced to Biotechnology YES at the SULSA Young Scientists Event where I became very interested in learning more about the skills required to be an Entrepreneur. After the event I discovered that a few of my colleagues at the University of Glasgow were keen to enter the Biotechnology Yes competition so we set up a team. Having attended the briefing session down in Nottingham we were given a lot of support on how the competition was going to run with talks introducing finance, idea generation, last years winners and the experience from an entrepreneur. I am looking forward to working as part of a team to generate a business idea and developing a wide attribute of skills.'

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10 October 2011 - Daniela Schlueter writes: the SULSA Biotechnology YES team (Nathaniel, Susana, Tania, David and Daniela), decided to meet in Edinburgh for a weekend as it proved to be very difficult to get things moving on our business plan without seeing each other. Friday evening, over a pint, we started discussing where we were at, what sort of problems we were facing and also alternative business ideas. The initially casual chat got more and more detailed and we ended up deciding to properly look into a new product, as it might be a lot more profitable than the one we had been focussing on so far.

After a good night’s sleep and a fantastic breakfast we found a place in a coffee shop where we exchanged ideas and started getting stuck into the research on our potentially new product. It quickly became clear that we were all so enthusiastic about this new idea that we really were going to change the concept of our business. Lots of cups of coffee, empty laptop batteries and a few headaches later we had laid the foundation for our new business. All that was left to do then was to split the tasks that had to be done before each one of us could focus on their directorial role.

Late Sunday morning we set off to the train station and went back to our individual universities.  It had been a very productive and fun weekend and proved how important it is to sit down together and discuss ideas and problems rather than everyone just doing their own thing. Hopefully we’ll find some more time to meet up in person or on skype before the workshop in November. 

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9 November 2011 David Toner and Nathaniel Jones write - Our team assembled in Edinburgh for the Scottish leg of the Biotechnology YES competition. Held in the business suite of a Holiday Inn next to Edinburgh Zoo we heard talks from experts in the fields of intellectual property, finance and marketing. These talks pointed us in the right directions for making our business plan, and were especially informative for us, as collectively we had very little experience of the commercialization of research. 

L-R in photo: David Toner, Nathaniel Jones, Susana Moleirinho, Tania Ramos (Daniela Schlueter not pictured).

Lunch was followed by allocation of a “boardroom” to each team, where we began work on the business plan. We began a little downhearted as one of the team, Daniela, could not attend due to illness and she was sorely missed. Daniela had put in a lot of work before the competition and we all felt that it was a great shame that she couldn’t enjoy the fun of the workshop. 

The idea we had decided to work on had come from our previous team meeting in Edinburgh. After talking about various ideas we had decided to go for a product in the field of skincare. At our previous team meeting we had “invented” a modified version of hyaluron, a component of the extracellular matrix, that could be incorporated into moisturizers and prevent acne or other skin inflammation. We named our product and decided to market it as a prebiotic way to maintain a healthy skin.  Susana even managed to get a nice company logo designed by a friend. 

We discussed various routes to market including licensing, making and distributing the products ourselves or going for an intermediate route utilizing contract manufacturers and distribution deals with firms like Boots. We settled on the latter, deciding that as a group we wanted to go for this high-risk/high-payoff choice of route to market over the more straightforward licensing route. As a secondary reason, we decided that this approach would give us the greater educational opportunity and the chance to make a more ambitious presentation. During our planning we were visited by mentors who helped us refine our model; the discussions we had were really stimulating and greatly improved on our initial thoughts. We found it really interesting that individual business advisors (tutors) had very different perspectives on what choice was the best route to market for our product. 

At the end of the first day, one member of the team was required to give a one-minute “elevator” pitch to try to convince a potential investor that our product and team would be worthy of their investment. All of the students taking part then voted on which pitch they thought was the best, and the SULSA team won! Congratulations must go to David for the charisma of his pitch. 

The second day began with case studies of companies, which were presented by their founders or senior management and were perhaps the most interesting part of the workshop. Then it was back to the task of polishing off the business plan and presentation. Given the short time-frame this was a fairly stressful experience but one that was complete so that we could each get 2-3 hours sleep… 

The final day brought an early start for the team presentations.  We were all interested to hear how the other teams would perform. The presentations from other groups were all of a very high standard and it was interesting to see the strengths and weakness in each of them. We were happy with our own delivery of our presentation, and managed to fit it in just within the available time! Questions from the judges to all of the teams were actually very encouraging given the intensely competitive atmosphere (we were all expecting “Dragons”!), and they gave teams the opportunity to elaborate on certain areas of their business model. Ultimately we were unsuccessful, mainly due to our risky strategy and lack of emphasis on our financial projections/exit strategy for investors.  And, despite our lack of competition success, SULSA will still be represented at the UK final by Faye Mcleod who was part of the winning University of Glasgow team. 

To summarize; it was an enjoyable, enlightening and slightly manic (!) way to spend a few days away from our research. The dynamic, team-working environment of the competition provided a really good opportunity for us to develop our transferable and soft skills, and the quality of the tutoring and organization provided us with an excellent introduction to basic business skills. Being exposed to non-academic science from small to medium sized companies was a fairly novel thing for all of us and definitely increased our awareness of both the pitfalls and rewards of this sector. 

The team would like to extend its thanks to the organizers, speakers and mentors who contributed to making this challenge fun and rewarding few days. I think we would all recommend it to any SULSA students who may have the opportunity to take part in future Biotechnology YES competitions!

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