Workshop offers support for start-ups

Evisense, a Sydney University spin-off, holds the patents for some diagnostic devices that are potentially worth millions. The problem is that its inventor, Dr Richard Appleyard, doesn't have the finance to work on developing his technologies full-time.

Appleyard said a team of four was working on developing the skin tester, after he invented the device three years ago at Sydney University.

"I would love to be head of the research and development team which takes this core technology into expanding applications and to assist in developing the business model," he told Australian Biotechnology News.

For now, however, Appleyard is trying to keep a hand in the project while keeping up his day job - running the orthopaedics biomechanical laboratory at St George Hospital, in Sydney's south.

Since Evisense received a $100,000 COMET grant last year to assist in commercialising its products, Appleyard hopes that he can step into his dream job.

This seems to be the plight of a number of entrepreneurial scientists who are attending Developing Your Bioproduct, an AusBiotech workshop series that made its debut last week in Sydney. To assist these novice entrepreneurs make the transition from science to business, those experienced in the industry are sharing their wisdom.

At the series' seminar, Novogen research director Prof Alan Husband, an academic who later in his career moved over to the private sector, revealed many of the pitfalls and risks involved in the process of taking a product from market research to market launch.

After successfully listing on the Australian stock market in 1994, his company has been developing its platform technology based on its isoflavenoid drug. Some drugs are already on the market available as over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, and others are in the pipeline. "It's amazing that one family of drugs, isoflavenoid, can be a target for so many aging diseases including cancer, cardiovascular, osteoporosis and inflammatory diseases," he said.

Novogen has two arms to its business: OTC pharmaceuticals and R&D arm. It also does clinical trials for anti-cancer drugs. It is worth $250 million and it's the fifth largest listed Australian biotechnology company today, according to the Deloittes index. Ausbiotech's Dr Shanny Dyer, coordinator of the workshop, said it was not just about getting money.

"Taking your product to market involves multi-disciplinary steps and a chain of events, and unless people know about these, financial backers will laugh at you when you ask them for finance," she said.

The series of lectures over the next six months will be held at the Australian Technology Park including talks from the finance experts and those in the biotechnology industry.