Professor Garth Cooper of Auckland University plans to combine scientific breakthrough with financial backing.YOKE HAR LEE reports.
The rest of the world knows him better than most New Zealanders. In 1987, Professor Garth Cooper isolated a protein hormone found in the pancreas. Now head of the University of Auckland's biochemistry department, Professor Cooper can be termed as one of those people who has personal experience in taking a piece of science and making it commercial.
Professor Cooper's landmark discovery of a protein hormone which he named Amylin formed the basis for Nasdaq-listed Amylin Pharmaceuticals. Amylin is found in the pancreas of diabetics.
He has some remarkably astute observations about what it takes for research to be commercialised. One of the most basic of tests is defined: "The first test is 'what is the breakthrough in intellectual property that will form the basis for a biopharmaceutical company'? One of the things you must be able to do is to produce something that people want or fulfils a need - an unmet human need." There are many companies listed on Nasdaq dedicated to the same cause as his former company Amylin Pharmaceuticals - the cure for type-two diabetes, the one that occurs later in life, unlike the earlier type-one which makes diabetics insulin-dependent.
Professor Cooper's love affair with diabetes research began way back in the early 1980s when he stood in as researcher for Dr Michael Gill - a pathologist-cum-mountaineer - who had gone to accompany Sir Edmund Hillary on a trip to the Annapurna ranges in the Himalayas. Professor Cooper's term at the Middlemore Hospital, where he came in contact with the high occurrence of diabetics in South Auckland, also triggered his determination to find a cure.
In 1985, Professor Cooper went to Oxford under a Nuffield Scholarship. Two years later, he made his discovery, raising his profile internationally.
But Oxford University told him that because they believed the discoverer owned the intellectual property, he had to take it further. "Because of the charter Oxford had, I was told I had to develop the research further myself. Besides, they did not have the experience to deal with such a project."
Through two key people at Oxford - Professor John Bell and Professor John Todd - he was introduced to American financier and entrepreneur Howard "Ted" Green, who finally funded the project further. Mr Green's backing led to Amylin Pharmaceuticals being formed and later listed on Nasdaq. Mr Green has backed at least six biotech companies, including Hybritech, which he sold for a huge sum.
Professor Cooper's search for financial backing took him from Oxford to San Diego. His experience with Amylin has become a case study in a private paper put forward by the British Government on why changes had to be made to address the lack of capital and infrastructure to commercialise good research. Recently, Professor Cooper came into contact with Taiwan's largest venture capital company, Hotung, and met its chairman, Dr S.C.Hong. The Taiwanese firm reaffirmed its view that New Zealand needs to act quickly to preserve homegrown intellectual property.
"We have really exciting science, great human capital. It is really intellectual capital that is capable of making a great contribution. We still have a good standard of education - but one which is deteriorating through lack of investment. In fact, the performance [of the education system] is really high relative to the lack of funding. We are rapidly getting to a point where we won't be able to function properly because of the lack in funding," he said.
To be able to build technology-based corporations, New Zealand needed to build and cement a dynamic working relationship between the scientist and the financier/entrepreneur, and to strengthen the commercial environment that such companies operate in.
While patent laws were the primary protection for intellectual property, lawyers quickly become important in positioning a corporation, he said. By the time Amylin Pharmaceuticals was employing 50 people, there was already a team of three intellectual property lawyers intimately involved in the direction and development of the company's strategy. Further, sharpening the commercial laws companies operated within was also fundamental to helping manage the risk for scientists, entrepreneurs and investors.
"And I strongly suspect that the development of the services [content of our legal/commercial environment] is in its infancy," he said. He is of the opinion that the American venture capital models work the best. Auckland UniServices, which is the commercial arm of the University of Auckland seeking to commercialise research, could work provided it undertook the same due diligence processes done by world class venture capitalists.
Scientists need to be involved - they are staking their careers on their science while investors usually part only with spare money. Professor Cooper can safely say he is brave enough to know when it is time to get on with his own vision. He sold his interest in Amylin Pharmaceuticals because it departed from the path he believed it should have taken. "I don't know what they will think but I thought some of my ideas which were still unformed were set in concrete as it were. It got to a paradoxical point where I believed I couldn't challenge my own ideas. I wanted to be in an environment where I could continue to challenge my own ideas and to develop things."
Now Professor Cooper is busy finding his holy grail - the cure for type-two diabetes. US studies have shown that the cost of combating diabetes is $US77 billion a year and increasingly rapidly.
But, Professor Cooper is sanguine about things. "You always work on the basis that the odds are you will fail. That is the basis you work on. One thing one mustn't do is to give false hopes."
He believes his research has made breakthroughs, but he is not telling. His race will be to get ahead of the pack in protecting the intellectual property and translating it into a commercial form.
Commercial appliance of leading-edge science ...
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