Blog Post
From Lab to Impact: Translating R&D Investments into Resilience Technologies
Summary
Under the umbrella of the Technology and Public Purpose Project, and specifically within the scope of the “Lab to Impact” research, this article aims at describing the process through which new technologies are transitioned out of R&D labs toward making an impact in our society.
Enhancing our scientific translational capabilities is crucial to accelerate the discovery, inception and scale-up of science-based solutions to address our challenges and build a resilient society.
New Technologies as Solutions to Our Challenges
COP26 came to an end amidst protests from the youngest generations, demanding more concrete actions to address the climate crisis. At the same time, there is a rare area of consensus emerging: we can fight climate change with new technologies. Expecting drastic changes in human behavior or brave, swiping Government policies is not going to work.
Similarly, the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of R&D in the medical field as the only way to defeat the worst emergency of our century. We developed life-saving vaccines building upon fundamental scientific discoveries. The approval of mRNA-based vaccines is the culmination of 20+ years of R&D investments in academic and government labs.
To make an mRNA vaccine, we needed a fundamental scientific breakthrough (you can teach your body to produce its own “medicine”), a new mechanism of action (mRNA), advanced sequencing capabilities and a way to deliver those nucleic acids to the cells (Lipid nanoparticles). Thanks to the scientific research in those areas, we could immunize the world against a deadly disease.
More broadly, we are coming to the realization that new technologies will be key to address threats to our society, making us more resilient. From pandemic to climate and national security. There is a growing evidence that new science, rather than changes in human patterns, will be the solution.
Where are New Technologies Coming From?
Decarbonizing our society, fighting pandemics, addressing food security (or in short: building a resilient society) have one thing is common: they require new technologies to be deployed at scale. But where are new technologies coming from?
In the United States alone, breakthrough scientific discoveries are made every day. Critically important technologies are developed in Universities and Government labs with billions in public funding and employing thousands of scientists working at the intersection between various technical fields. This research ecosystem produces a wealth of discoveries that have the potentials to solve some of the most pressing issues we are facing today.
Climate change, energy, pandemics, cybersecurity, terrorism. To understand the magnitude of what new academic discoveries can do, it is useful to look at some of the most notable successes and their impact on our society. The internet, our iPhone battery, the GPS, a Google search, the current Covid-19 vaccine and Siri, are just few examples of how government-funded research delivered critical capabilities for our advancement as society.
But for each one of those successes, how many discoveries are we failing to bring to fruition? Very few discoveries are actually becoming new products or services that can benefit us all. As we are witnessing more failures in changing self-harming behaviors (e.g. fossil fuel subsidies) we need to accelerate this process, because soon will be our only tool available.
How to Translate R&D into New Capabilities
How do we go from a new discovery based on a scientific intuition, to a product that can address our most pressing needs? It turns out that there is a system in place to achieve this, that it’s called technology transfer, spin-off or scientific translation. Let’s see how it works – or doesn’t.
The process through which we can transition early-stage R&D discoveries into product and services, has various names, but it is called scientific translation in the academic world and spin-off or start-up in the investment and Venture Capital community.
It is essentially a process aimed at leveraging discoveries made in research labs and linking them to practical problems with a large unmet need or market opportunity. To leverage private capital, the scientific discovery is adapted to provide a solution to an unmet market need. A strong business case is needed to justify large investment of private capital to scale and deploy the new technology into a defined, beachhead market.
Technologies are usually licensed from the inventing institution (university or National lab) to a new start-up company or a larger, existing firm and focused on a specific application of the scientific discovery. There is a need to pour large amount of funding to adapt the initial discovery to a specific application of interest, with a large amount of failure rates. The start-up main focus is securing funding from Venture Capital or other sources to advance the development toward market.
It is often the case that the technical risk is so great that private investors will shy away from the very early stage of technology development. To overcome this barrier, several Government programs such as the Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) supply the capital to achieve technical milestones before private investors would come onboard. Foundations can also provide capital and other resources to bridge the gap. However, the field of “deep tech”, defined as an ecosystem of companies born out of scientific research, skyrocketed in the past few years. Private investors such as early-stage venture capital firms became more comfortable with long-term investment horizons and willing to accept greater technical risks in exchange for a possibility to enter huge market opportunities with virtually no competition. What if you could make a battery that last 1 year instead of 1 day? How about a quantum computer that could be in your desk? Or a new kind of seeds that can grow in arid land? Someone made a bet 10 years ago in investing in a concept related to using our own body to create our own medicines (mRNA). We all know now how that investment went. Because of this success, the field is ready for prime time.
Some of those concepts are under development, and if de-risked from a technical perspective, could open up billion-dollar market that are completely untapped and solve huge problems sustainably.
The Way Forward
It is time to expect more returns from public investments in R&D in the form of new technologies being deployed across industries. When at scale, those can contribute to address the most pressing challenges we are facing today. More public funding should be allocated to investments in early-stage ventures advancing the translation of new scientific discoveries into high technological products and services.
For more information on this publication:
Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation:
Valenti, Livio .“From Lab to Impact: Translating R&D Investments into Resilience Technologies .” Perspectives on Public Purpose, November 9, 2021, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/lab-impact-translating-rd-investments-resilience-technologies.
The Author
Livio Valenti
- 2021-22 Fellow, Technology and Public Purpose Project
Summary
Under the umbrella of the Technology and Public Purpose Project, and specifically within the scope of the “Lab to Impact” research, this article aims at describing the process through which new technologies are transitioned out of R&D labs toward making an impact in our society.
Enhancing our scientific translational capabilities is crucial to accelerate the discovery, inception and scale-up of science-based solutions to address our challenges and build a resilient society.
New Technologies as Solutions to Our Challenges
COP26 came to an end amidst protests from the youngest generations, demanding more concrete actions to address the climate crisis. At the same time, there is a rare area of consensus emerging: we can fight climate change with new technologies. Expecting drastic changes in human behavior or brave, swiping Government policies is not going to work.
Similarly, the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of R&D in the medical field as the only way to defeat the worst emergency of our century. We developed life-saving vaccines building upon fundamental scientific discoveries. The approval of mRNA-based vaccines is the culmination of 20+ years of R&D investments in academic and government labs.
To make an mRNA vaccine, we needed a fundamental scientific breakthrough (you can teach your body to produce its own “medicine”), a new mechanism of action (mRNA), advanced sequencing capabilities and a way to deliver those nucleic acids to the cells (Lipid nanoparticles). Thanks to the scientific research in those areas, we could immunize the world against a deadly disease.
More broadly, we are coming to the realization that new technologies will be key to address threats to our society, making us more resilient. From pandemic to climate and national security. There is a growing evidence that new science, rather than changes in human patterns, will be the solution.
Where are New Technologies Coming From?
Decarbonizing our society, fighting pandemics, addressing food security (or in short: building a resilient society) have one thing is common: they require new technologies to be deployed at scale. But where are new technologies coming from?
In the United States alone, breakthrough scientific discoveries are made every day. Critically important technologies are developed in Universities and Government labs with billions in public funding and employing thousands of scientists working at the intersection between various technical fields. This research ecosystem produces a wealth of discoveries that have the potentials to solve some of the most pressing issues we are facing today.
Climate change, energy, pandemics, cybersecurity, terrorism. To understand the magnitude of what new academic discoveries can do, it is useful to look at some of the most notable successes and their impact on our society. The internet, our iPhone battery, the GPS, a Google search, the current Covid-19 vaccine and Siri, are just few examples of how government-funded research delivered critical capabilities for our advancement as society.
But for each one of those successes, how many discoveries are we failing to bring to fruition? Very few discoveries are actually becoming new products or services that can benefit us all. As we are witnessing more failures in changing self-harming behaviors (e.g. fossil fuel subsidies) we need to accelerate this process, because soon will be our only tool available.
How to Translate R&D into New Capabilities
How do we go from a new discovery based on a scientific intuition, to a product that can address our most pressing needs? It turns out that there is a system in place to achieve this, that it’s called technology transfer, spin-off or scientific translation. Let’s see how it works – or doesn’t.
The process through which we can transition early-stage R&D discoveries into product and services, has various names, but it is called scientific translation in the academic world and spin-off or start-up in the investment and Venture Capital community.
It is essentially a process aimed at leveraging discoveries made in research labs and linking them to practical problems with a large unmet need or market opportunity. To leverage private capital, the scientific discovery is adapted to provide a solution to an unmet market need. A strong business case is needed to justify large investment of private capital to scale and deploy the new technology into a defined, beachhead market.
Technologies are usually licensed from the inventing institution (university or National lab) to a new start-up company or a larger, existing firm and focused on a specific application of the scientific discovery. There is a need to pour large amount of funding to adapt the initial discovery to a specific application of interest, with a large amount of failure rates. The start-up main focus is securing funding from Venture Capital or other sources to advance the development toward market.
It is often the case that the technical risk is so great that private investors will shy away from the very early stage of technology development. To overcome this barrier, several Government programs such as the Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) supply the capital to achieve technical milestones before private investors would come onboard. Foundations can also provide capital and other resources to bridge the gap. However, the field of “deep tech”, defined as an ecosystem of companies born out of scientific research, skyrocketed in the past few years. Private investors such as early-stage venture capital firms became more comfortable with long-term investment horizons and willing to accept greater technical risks in exchange for a possibility to enter huge market opportunities with virtually no competition. What if you could make a battery that last 1 year instead of 1 day? How about a quantum computer that could be in your desk? Or a new kind of seeds that can grow in arid land? Someone made a bet 10 years ago in investing in a concept related to using our own body to create our own medicines (mRNA). We all know now how that investment went. Because of this success, the field is ready for prime time.
Some of those concepts are under development, and if de-risked from a technical perspective, could open up billion-dollar market that are completely untapped and solve huge problems sustainably.
The Way Forward
It is time to expect more returns from public investments in R&D in the form of new technologies being deployed across industries. When at scale, those can contribute to address the most pressing challenges we are facing today. More public funding should be allocated to investments in early-stage ventures advancing the translation of new scientific discoveries into high technological products and services.
The Author
Livio Valenti
- 2021-22 Fellow, Technology and Public Purpose Project