Spin-offs not always the answer: CSIRO business chief

Technology transfer, rather than spin-offs or other options, is the key to effective commercialisation at CSIRO, according to the organisation's recently appointed executive director of business development.

Mehrdad Baghai, a former partner at business strategy firm McKinsey and Co before joining CSIRO nine months ago, told last week's Commercialisation Forum in Sydney that CSIRO needed to adopt a new approach to technology transfer.

He pointed out that the organisation had spun off many companies, including biotech firms Ambri and GroPep, and had averaged about 78 patent applications a year since 1995.

"But we could spin off 50 companies in the next three months and that would do little for commercialisation," he said. "Technology transfer is greater than patents and licensing and spin-offs put together."

Baghai, who is also the author of a book, The Alchemy of Growth, said partnering would be a key way for CSIRO to get value out of its strong patent portfolio.

"I was surprised at how little of our income came out of collaboration," he said, while nodding to past successes such as a strategic alliance with Bayer CropScience.

Over the last couple of weeks, he said, he had been presenting aspects of CSIRO's work to US firms to target new collaborative opportunities.

He said CRCs had been another of CSIRO's collaborative pathways for commercialisation, and "we've been trying to understand where we've been successful."

Baghai admitted CSIRO's track record on spin-offs had been patchy and said the orgabisation was looking for alternatives to the straight spin-off method it traditionally employed. For example, he said, the organisation had set up a venture capitalist 'parade' -- rather than pitch to a VC, a group of VCs would come to CSIRO. CSIRO was also looking to better manage its patent portfolio, he said.

Bahgai said the main benchmark to be measured when looking at commercialisation was the impact. Australian policy-makers, he said, should focus on tech transfer rather than commercialisation, support the approaches that would provide the greatest impact, and not confuse activity with impact.

Looking for "distinctly Australian" opportunities was also advisable, he said, and it was important to find a way to overcome potentially ruinous state-based rivalries.