Sharing in vibrant life science ecosystems

Sharing in vibrant life science ecosystems

In the summer, I had the pleasure and honour to complete my one-year tenure as Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Bruntwood SciTech; supporting early-stage life science companies in Manchester and at Alderley Park in Cheshire.

Alderley Park, the former Astra Zeneca site, is the UK’s largest single site life sciences campus and home to well over a hundred companies, ranging from start-ups that can “rent a bench” through to large contract research organisations. It is more of a “village” than a science park! One of the striking features of Alderley Park is the access to shared “Scientific Services”, ranging from glassware collection and cleaning through to the latest cell and protein analytical equipment. The idea is simple – even the smallest company can land there and immediately start research and development. They then become firmly embedded in “village life,” scaling their business by moving to ever larger lab space.

Sharing is at the heart of a vibrant life science ecosystem – sharing of knowledge, sharing of experience and, it would seem, sharing equipment that would otherwise be inaccessible.

Supply and demand

However, shared scientific equipment is only viable if three parts of the equation are balanced. First, you need to offer state-of the art equipment. Second, you need sufficient demand for the equipment, which means it only really works on larger campuses. Finally, the access, maintenance, and servicing require proactive monitoring and management on a day-to-day basis. Because of this, operating a shared scientific service has the potential to be expensive. However, there is new payment model that has the potential to reduce costs for the ecosystem operator – “Pay-per-use” (PPU). PPU is an arrangement between a customer and a financing company where the customer only pays for equipment, made available by the financing company, as they use it. There is also the possibility to share in the revenue between the finance company and the ecosystem operator. PPU for scientific equipment has started to gain traction in the US and it has now landed in the UK. PPU solutions for shared scientific equipment provide many benefits, including reducing investment barriers new and costly technologies.

Collaborating for access to state-of-the-art equipment

For the regular UK science park there is a challenge in that the demand from tenant companies will likely be too small to justify the notion of shared scientific equipment. However, many science parks are based near major R&D hubs, including hospitals and academia; in aggregate a local life science community that could provide the footfall to justify a shared scientific equipment service. Now, from previous experience I am acutely aware that truly effective partnerships between academia, hospitals and science parks is easily said but is often challenging in practice! That said, this would be an initiative that need not require a large capital outlay and could grow organically in-line with demand, with all the equipment itself being externally financed. For those partnerships that have the local demand and commit to the journey, the prize could be significant - improved collaboration, innovation, and, ultimately, economic growth for the region.