When Celltech Ltd was formed in 1980 it profoundly affected a number of government agencies concerned with technology transfer. The company emerged from the National Enterprise Board and the Medical Research Council, and an agreement between these two organizations circumvented the then existing arrangement whereby most government-funded research had first to be offered for commercialization to the National Research Development Corporation. This agreement was instrumental in changing the existing system. The paper describes the pressures which led to the novel agreement, the rows which it caused, and the consequences it had for technology transfer from academia to industry.
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References
1.
See New Developments in Biotechnology: 4: US Investment in Biotechnology, Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress, 1988; and WalshV., ‘Desperately seeking solvency: or external linkages of small UK biotechnology firms’, paper presented at workshop on Inter-firm Technological Co-operation Agreements, Université Paris X Nanterre, pp. 21–22 November 1988. Faulkner refers to a study which shows that before 1980 10 new biotechnology firms had been created in the UK, and this number increased to 14 by 1981.
2.
This paper only discusses the role of the Medical Research Council. It does not deal with the biotechnology interests of the Science and Engineering Research Council. For a discussion of the latter, see SenkerJ.SharpM., ‘The biotechnology directorate of the SERC’, Science Policy Research Unit, UK, 1988.
3.
See, New Scientist, 3 July 1980; Nature, 10 April 1980; Financial Times, 8 April 1980.
4.
Compare, for example, WinterG., ‘Antibody engineering’, Phil Trans. R. Soc. Lond, 1989, B 324, where he points to the culpability of NRDC, and YanchinskiS., ‘Microbes at work — is the price too high?’, New Scientist, 3 July 1980, who emphasises the commercial naïveté of the academics involved. Winter points to the way that the commercial significance of MAbs had immediately been realized and broadcast by the BBC in 1975, but were missed by the NRDC.
5.
Spinks Report, 'Biotechnology: Report of a Joint Working Party’, London, HMSO, 1980, p 41.
6.
Undoubtedly increasing the MRC's dissatisfaction with the system which did not allow it direct access to this income.
7.
These are actual quotations from internal NRDC and NEB memos.
8.
A number of individuals knowledgeable about the events at this time have mentioned that they felt that considering its position, the NRDC did rather better than expected in these negotiations. This has to be explained in considerable part by the time pressures the NEB team faced. Delay followed delay, and reaching an agreement with the NRDC removed a major obstacle to the company's formation.
9.
At this time concerns were being raised in some quarters about the business potential of a number of NEB investments. It would have been unlikely if these doubts had not influenced the approach the institutional investors adopted with the NEB. The NEB itself was in a less than secure position politically. Celltech was the NEB's first major investment where it failed to have a majority shareholding.
10.
For a full evaluation of Celltech's achievements, see DodgsonM., Science Policy Research Unit Special Report1990. This article refers only to its technology transfer.
11.
Critics which included the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Industry.
12.
As the Economist scathingly noted in an article on biotechnology at the time ‘Britain is not lavishly endowed with private investors keen on high-risk investment in high technology’, 14 June 1980. See PavittK., Technological Change and British Economic Performance, Macmillan, London, 1980, for an analysis of the extent of the problem at this time.
13.
See FishlockDavid, Financial Times, 31 March 1982.
14.
See, for example, the comments by JenkinPatrick, Minister of Industry, to the House of Commons Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts; Minutes of Evidence on Biotechnology, 24 May 1982.
15.
See the critical recommendation made by the House of Commons Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, July 1982. Senker and Sharp, op cit, Ref 2, p 58 argue that the MRC was criticized by large firms for ‘locking-in’ its expertise in Celltech, to their detriment. New Scientist, 13 November 1980, reported the concerns of some MRC scientists about the agreement with Celltech.
16.
Sir James Gowans was quoted in 1983 as saying it was only the MRC/Celltech agreement which awakened industry to the commercial possibilities of MAbs (Financial Times, 23 May 1983).
17.
Financial Times, 18 December 1986.
18.
At the time of writing the company is currently involved in negotiations with potential new shareholders. It maybe that as a result of these negotiations the company no longer remains independent.
