Istarted to think of scientific entrepreneurship instead
of the traditional science career path because I wanted to create a
company to exploit fully the commercial value of a platform of
technologies, some of which I had co-invented during my
postdoctoral training. The slim chance of finding an academic job
in my own country helped!
Setting up a new company is a team effort. I convinced three key
people--my boss, Professor Alan Fersht from the Medical Research
Council (MRC) Centre for Protein Engineering in Cambridge, U.K.;
the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Sir John Walker from the
MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit, also in Cambridge; and Dr. Fergal
Hill from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg,
Germany--to join our synergistic technologies and varied expertise.
Together we set up our company, Avidis . Then, we sought an
infrastructure that combined an attractive capitalist environment
with support for fledgling entrepreneurs. According to these
criteria, the Biopôle
Clermont-Limagne in Saint Beauzire (just outside
Clermont-Ferrand, France) was the most suitable. The Auvergne has
the bonus of being one of the most attractive regions of
France!
Scientists seeking to exploit their discoveries by setting up
new biotechnology companies face a difficult choice: They must
either spend time learning how to run a business on a lengthy,
full-time course such as an MBA, or they take the risk and plunge
in at the deep end, taking advice from consultants. I took another
option, encouraged by Professor Michel Renaud, vice president of
the University of Auvergne and founder of the Biopôle
Clermont-Limagne. I took a special training course run by Eurobiobiz (supported by the
European Commission and Arthur Andersen), which includes a
dedicated software package (Biobiz). This course enables scientists
to understand the business planning that is required for starting
up a company.
During this training, I gained the skills needed to write a
business plan, which would enable us to attract real interest from
venture capitalists. Indeed, having decided the business model of
our project (i.e., the marketing strategy to develop commercially
the products arising from our technologies), I wrote its business
plan. I submitted it to the "1st Capital-Innovation Competition"
run by French venture capitalists, the Groupe SOFIMAC (Société de
Financement des PME du Massif Central).
Our company, Avidis, won first prize in this competition and now
aims to develop essential technologies for the industrial
production of recombinant proteins. Its existing portfolio of
innovative technologies enables us to produce native recombinant
proteins. These proteins will be used for therapy, for developing
treatments, for studying protein function, and for producing
diagnostic tests and vaccines. The ability to manufacture proteins,
which at present are very difficult or even impossible to produce,
in large quantities and in their native form, rapidly and
inexpensively, will have an enormous impact in all sectors of
biology (biotechnology, nutrition, pharmacy, human and animal
health care, and, in the near future, nanotechnology).
Avidis is simultaneously a source of ideas and innovations for
new products and a platform of technologies for their creation and
development. The Research & Development arm will develop all
the products derived from Avidis' proprietary technologies while
the Service arm will use these products for clients' applications.
Avidis is supported by the Medical Research Council and le Groupe
SOFIMAC, which will lead the first round of funding with other
international venture capitalists.
The formation of new companies drives growth in new sectors such
as biotechnology. Start-ups help to transfer technologies from
academia to the market place. However, for scientists who are
seldom familiar with management and finance, it is a new world. In
Europe, budding entrepreneurs should look to the European Commission for help.
The opportunity to become an entrepreneur and to build your own
company will create new reasons for today's more courageous and
adventurous young scientists to enjoy both science and life. The
frustration of leaving the workbench or the sadness of not finding
an academic job in their own country will be replaced by the
excitement of a new world, and this will open new avenues to extend
their talents.
Jean Chatellier obtained his Ph.D. in molecular
biology from the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. He
was a Marie Curie fellow at the Medical Research Council Centre for
Protein Engineering in Cambridge, U.K., in the laboratory of Prof.
Alan Fersht, the pioneer of protein engineering, from 1997 to 1999,
where he worked as a postdoc on the mechanisms of the bacterial
chaperonin GroEL. This article first appeared in the summer 2000
issue of the newsletter of the Marie Curie Fellowship
Association .