KEY POINTS:
New Zealand is outperforming the United States when it comes to commercialising university science, according to WaikatoLink chief executive Mark Stuart.
Benchmarking data shows New Zealand universities spend $35 million in research per start-up company compared to $165 million in the US and $4 million per patent compared to $18 million in the US, Stuart said.
WaikatoLink was the commercial arm of the University of Waikato.
For every $1 of licence income from science $5 was spent on university research in New Zealand, compared to $32 in the US, Stuart said.
At first glance the licence income looked bad but royalty payments generally made up about 3 to 5 per cent of sales, he said.
"So if you spend $1 on research you'll get about $20 back in the market, which is pretty fantastic."
US commercialisation offices tended to be staffed from within universities, while in New Zealand people were hired from the business world and the country attracted a lot people in the middle or towards the end of their scientific careers.
"Also it's just this whole thing, New Zealanders, we have to make do and we're used to doing things on the smell of an oily rag," Stuart said.
Most New Zealand universities started commercialising intellectual property in about 2000, with the exception of Auckland University which had been doing so for close to 20 years.
In 2000, Waikato University had two start-up companies, but by 2007 the national cumulative number was 32, 52 including Auckland, Stuart said.
Andrew Kelly, executive director at BioPacificVentures, said 80 per cent of the deals the Auckland-based venture capital fund saw did not come through universities, although a lot could be traced back to academic research and the gap to the venture capital community was being bridged.
"All I'm suggesting theoretically, is there a process that's occurring that we're a little bit blind to at the moment?" Kelly said. "Is there some missing link there that we as a nation should focus on and start saying, 'OK how do we best mature these things outside of the institutes'."
The US had a huge, vibrant venture capital community, Kelly said.
"There's all sorts of proposals coming forward and companies, and there's a very strong entrepreneurial culture," he said. "We seem to lack that here and that might be a component in this missing phase that I'm talking about."
COMMERCIAL SCIENCE
* $35m in university research per start up.
* $4m spent per patent.
* $1 of research returns $20.
* New Zealand is out-performing US.
