UniServices focuses on strategic partnerships in Asia

UniServices is reinforcing its commitment to target both Korea and Singapore for the development of strategic partnerships in 2011. This continues the focus developed in 2010, which saw these two Asian countries represent two thirds of UniServices’ strategic country partnerships.

Business manager clinical research Cushla Currie says she cannot put exact figures on the total amount of business the organisation conducts with the whole of Asia, which it manages across numerous in-house teams, but the region represents a significant and growing part of UniServices’ international work.

Owned by the University of Auckland, UniServices is charged with managing the university’s intellectual property. It handles research-based consultancy partnerships, contract education and commercialisation.

Chief executive Dr Peter Lee says that, at around $40 million, international work now represents about 35 to 40 per cent of UniServices’ total business.

Currie notes that, in Korea’s case, there are many synergies between our two countries’ national strategies for growth.

“We don’t compete in the same industries so we’re relatively friendly towards each other. And we have very synergistic capabilities that, when combined, are superior to what either country can produce alone.”

She gives the example of a current collaboration between New Zealand and Korean researchers that aims to develop a mobile phone solution used as an intervention for Korean problem gamblers.

“New Zealand has a well-developed and e-enabled health system. Korea has excellent core technologies in terms of electronics, IT and communications. Both countries are very interested in how we might develop medical technologies and there are lots of synergies between what we’re doing,” she says.

“If we combine our expertise, we can make medical products that could springboard into global markets… The premise is that, together, we are going to make better products for a global market than either country could make alone.”

In another project with Korean counterparts, UniServices is developing robot nurses to care for elderly Americans in their homes and institutions. Currie says the project partners will draw up a commercialisation roadmap in the next six months. The robot nurses are expected to be commercially available in the United States within the next two to three years.

The idea is the child of a union between UniServices and Korea’s government-backed Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) north of the city of Daejeon in central South Korea.

ETRI forms part of the Daedeok Innopolis, a world-leading technology cluster that combines the considerable resources and brainpower of multiple universities, research institutes, government and government-invested institutions, corporate research institutes and venture corporations.

Over the past two years, a fully-functioning prototype geriatric-care robot nurse has been clinically tested in New Zealand, which serves as a test-bed microcosm for the larger, more lucrative American market. When asked, eight out of ten patients said the robot nurse was so good they preferred it to the real thing.

Like many other organisations throughout Asia, ETRI is looking beyond mere technical capabilities in search of partners who can also provide expertise in commercialisation.

Chief executive Dr Peter Lee says it is sometimes difficult for New Zealand organisations to recognise for themselves, and convey to prospective partners, what our country has to offer. “Many projects have nothing to do with agriculture or primary services which we often tout as our points of distinction. In the case of health services, it’s not something that New Zealanders naturally think we are strong at but we are."

“New Zealand’s well-established and cost-effective health services system is world class and we’re able to point to independent verification of that to establish these credentials to what is, naturally, a cynical overseas audience.”

On top of that, he says, “Although it’s not necessarily widely known, the University of Auckland is among the top one per cent of universities in the world and UniServices is a large company with $120 million in revenue and 750 staff.”

Quoting these kinds of credentials, Lee points out, helps establish the organisation’s worthiness internationally.

“You need to be able to state such facts quite clearly and validate them when establishing a presence in Asia.

“Our commercial credentials – our ability to take our innovation and project it onto a world stage – is quite attractive to Korean companies. They can sometimes struggle with overseas markets – with western markets in particular – whereas at UniServices we’ve dealt with them for quite a long time.”

Cushla Currie adds that, in Asia, it is also very important to be able to validate your own organisation’s reputation. “Asia is a completely different place to do business. It’s very much around your reputation and very much about who you know. If you don’t know anyone you don’t get anywhere.”

Dr Lee says putting hard figures around any commercial goals for the robot in the US market would only be conjecture at this stage.

“But the market is measured in billions of US dollars, it’s growing very rapidly and we could project a sizeable share by being able to provide a very efficient alternative to human intervention.

“To say the least, it’s attractive to both countries to establish a position.”

UniServices is also on a similar two- or three-year trajectory for potential commercialisation of a research programme with partners in Singapore’s Biopolis high-tech biomedical park.

The Epi Gen project centres on the science of epi-genetics [‘epi’ meaning ‘near’ – as in the epicentre of an earthquake – and ‘gen’ for genetics].

“It means it’s not quite genetics but it’s near to it,” explains Lee.

Talking about UniServices’ strategic focus on Singapore, business manager biomedical sciences Andrew Palairet says it is a natural place for Auckland University to target. Singapore has a well-developed hub for the international medical industry while Auckland University is known for its niche expertise in medical research.

Cushla notes that Singapore’s world number one ranking for ease of doing business and New Zealand’s number two place provide a natural platform from which to work.

Epi Gen research investigates the ramifications of health and nutrition at an individual’s early stage of life.

“We can show that a person’s genetic makeup is influenced quite heavily by the environment and, in particular, by nutrition during the neo-natal period,” says Lee. “This has huge implications on a later-life tendency for obesity or diabetes and even on their level of intelligence.”

The ultimate outcome may be a series of infant formula interventions that will predict, prevent or moderate whole-life health issues. It could mean the ability to correct, early in life, a predisposition to allergies, diabetes or obesity.

Epi Gen has grown into a multinational six-partner consortium. Members include the Liggins Institute (via UniServices), AgResearch, the Singapore Institute of Clinical Sciences, the National University of Singapore, the University of Southampton and the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Resource Centre in Southampton.

Lee says the Epi Gen collaboration grew out of UniServices’ sponsorship of early research in the field and through tapping in to an international network of like-minded colleagues.

UniServices brings to the table both innovation and the commercial acumen that it has built up in its more than 22 years of business. “It makes for a good partnership.” Lee says the project has attracted the interest of several global nutrition companies who each fund the programme to many millions of dollars every year. “They’ve bought futures, if you like, into the intellectual property that will emerge in various fields such as obesity or allergies."

“They’ve each staked out a part of the outcome of the nutritional impacts on whole-life events. They’re hoping to be able to intervene during those neonatal periods to prevent what could otherwise be a detrimental impact later on in a person’s life.”

According to Lee, UniServices’ total international work is growing at about 30 per cent compound per year: which is twice the organisation’s overall company growth rate. 

“That shows you how important this international market – and in particular the Asian market – is for our innovation. The Asian market for innovation is hugely significant for us. As it does with milk powder, New Zealand produces more innovation than it can consume locally.”
- by Ruth Le Pla