High-flying expat returns to give Monash the commercial edge

Roland Scollay has been an academic scientist, a commercial scientist, has held managerial positions in US biotechnology companies and most recently has been the CEO for a biotechnology start-up in the US. So it's a natural progression for him to return to the academic environment, this time to look for opportunities to commercialise academic research.

Scollay's 24-year long academic career as an immunologist included 14 years at Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and a stint as the deputy director of the Centenary Institute at the University of Sydney.

In 1996, Scollay joined SyStemix, a US-based company specialising in gene and cell therapy, which was later acquired by Novartis. As SyStemix's vice president of research, and later the head of Novartis' cell and gene therapy program and a member of the Novartis global Research Management Board, he had a thorough grounding in the commercial side of science, including the interface between academic research and business.

More recently in mid-2000, Scollay moved to Genteric, another Bay Area gene therapy company; first as the chief scientific officer and VP of research, and later as the president and CEO. He remains a board member of the company.

Scollay's experience in both the academic and commercial world has brought him back to Australia, as the new director of commercialisation for Monash University's Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, a jointly held appointment, between the department and Monash's privately held commercialisation vehicle Monash Commercial (MonCom). Scollay's role at Monash involves assisting university staff to identify commercial opportunities and develop them to their fullest potential.

"Essentially my role is to professionalise the process of commercialisation... to help build a best-in-class commercialisation process in an academic environment," explains Scollay.

Scollay says this means looking at the research and commercialisation processes at all levels, from the students and scientists to the higher administration levels. He notes that younger scientists often have a lot more enthusiasm for commercialisation than more established academics, for example.

And in general, he believes the US models of commercialising university research, which Scollay experienced from the commercial perspective of business interactions with academic institutions, can teach Australia a lot about how to go about it successfully.

"We need to take the best of what can be learned from the US experience and apply it intelligently to the Australian environment," he explains. "They have been doing it for longer, and we can learn a lot from them. Learn from them but don't necessarily copy them."

So how does one go about increasing the commercial focus of a university? A key component, Scollay believes, is having the commercialisation offices right in the departments alongside the researchers, with access at the grass roots level. Scollay and his staff can then be at hand to provide advice on the patent process and the need to capture and protect IP, as well as help scientists with the process of finding commercial partners, licence their discoveries to biotech and pharmaceutical companies and maybe even spin it off into a new company.

"I think Monash is highly committed at all levels to developing commercialisation processes and is committing significant resources to establishing that in the university," he says. "For example, they're consciously trying to recruit people who have significant commercial experience throughout the university."

But the task at hand is not small. As well as becoming familiar with the faculty's researchers and their projects, Scollay will be setting up workshops and seminars to educate the staff and build a culture of commercial thinking in the academic environment.

"Education and culture change is going to be an important part of the university having commercialisation activities," he says.

Scollay is not blind to the challenges inherent to commercialising university research. He notes that Australia's complex research grant structures, which encourage large collaborative research projects, can make it complicated to sort out ownership of intellectual property, and consequently makes the process of selling intellectual property more difficult.

"Investors like a simple story. You need to be careful defining ownership of intellectual property, so it can be licensed on," he explains.

But despite the hurdles, the scientists at Monash are not lacking for commercially viable ideas, Scollay says.

"There are a number of start-ups in the works and a number of licensing deals in negotiation. I would expect a steady stream of both to come out in the future," he says.

In fact, Scollay believes the biotechnology industry in Australia has moved well forward compared to seven years ago, when he left Australia.

"There are lots of well-informed entrepreneurs, people making things happen," he says. "I'm very excited about being back in Australia and being able to contribute even a little to our growing biotechnology industry."