INTERVIEW: New AusBiotech head stakes her position

Since she took the top job at AusBiotech on the eve of the BIO conference earlier this year, Anna Lavelle has done a lot of listening. Now she's ready to talk -- about her role and her vision for the organisation. Ruth Beran reports.

The CEO role of an industry peak body could be a thankless task -- particularly when the industry is as complex as the Australian biotechnology industry.

The search for a CEO to replace long-time AusBiotech boss Tony Coulepis was a long one. But once she took the job, Dr Anna Lavelle hit the road running, and doesn't appear to have got out of top gear ever since. After three months at the helm, Lavelle has done a lot of listening, to all the industry's stakeholders. The week after our conversation, Lavelle was set to presenting her three-year vision for AusBiotech to the organisation's board.

"Three months is just enough time to work out who's who in the zoo, and figure out what the top seven or eight issues are and what the sector is saying about those," says Lavelle.

In her new role, Lavelle has had to think about AusBiotech's strategic partners and how to engage with them and what strengths the organisation has, both internally on its staff and board, and externally in its member groups.

"Once you've figured all that out and you've got your game plan, it becomes more straightforward because you know what the response is going to be to particular questions or challenges," says Lavelle.

Like many of the small biotech companies that AusBiotech represents, the industry group only has a small pool of full-time employees. "We don't have a large staff. We don't have unlimited resources," says Lavelle. "Our resources are very meagre, in fact."

Lavelle sees partnering as a way to overcome this problem. By drawing on members, international colleagues and expats, the financial community and higher education organisations, Lavelle hopes to partner with others and provide such services as professional development and the lobbying of governments on issues that face the biotechnology sector, such as taxation, as well as developing links with similar organisations internationally, such as BioSingapore and the Japan Bioindustry Association.

Skills gaps

The first issue that Lavelle wants to address is the gaps in the biotechnology skill base. "In biotech we have this interesting mix of science and business," she says. "In the last three months, on many occasions I've heard people talking about the need for scientists to be more businesslike, and the need for business people to be more technically astute."

Lavelle's own background is in science -- she has a PhD in genetics, and lectured at Monash University before taking executive roles at the Victorian Hospitals' association, Family Planning Victoria, and most recently the Australian Red Cross Blood Service.

She says that she "understands the sub-cultures: how the scientists operate, why they think that way". She also says that she understands "how business people think and behave a certain way".

"There are a few souls who can act as translators," she says. "I'd like to see AusBiotech act as an interpreter to bring these groups together and help them communicate better with each other."

By doing so, Lavelle feels that AusBiotech could strengthen the "foundation of biotechnology companies". "You cannot have a successful biotech company without both of those elements being very strong and well integrated," she says. "There's no room for one side or the other trying to dominate or trying to run the company solely in one sub-culture."

By partnering with similar organisations or higher education facilities, Lavelle hopes that in the next 12 months AusBiotech can provide professional development courses, for example, to first-time CEOs or board members.

"If you look at the survival rate for CEOs it's about 18 to 24 months, very often," she says. By providing master classes, Lavelle wants to give these professionals "encouragement" and "some practical information that will make the journey a little less rocky", thereby increasing their survival rate.

Lavelle says skilled CEOs in the industry could act as mentors and support to new comers. "I'm conscious that CEOs of small biotech companies don't have any disposable cash -- all their money is being channelled back into the company, back into their R&D, back into their product development," she says. "They cannot afford to bring in individuals at high cost to do staff development. If we can provide that, and the cost is more affordable to them, then that's a service to their bottom line -- and also, hopefully, to the longevity of the company."

The global scene

Another issue about which Lavelle has heard a lot in her first three months is Australia's position internationally. "Australia is a small player and we need to be clear about what our niche is in the global scene," she says. Should Australia focus on certain areas in biotechnology, Lavelle asks, or should we maintain a more general portfolio, knowing that some areas will be more successful than others?

"There's a lot of work we could do in terms of leveraging off our natural strength in biodiversity, looking at biomining, nutraceuticals, and functional foods. There are ready markets for those things," she says. "In other areas there is less of a natural strength but we have perhaps a historical strength in that area, such as strong medical research. Immunology comes to mind."

However, for areas such as medical research, money is far more accessible in the US and Europe than in Australia, "which is really the bottom line," says Lavelle. "Should we pick winners or shouldn't we pick winners?" asks Lavelle. "That's an argument that people in the industry have all the time."

Tighten up

Another issue that Lavelle says many Australian companies will face in the next three years is whether to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions. "Can we afford to have the number of small companies that we have in this country, or do we need to start to build stronger companies that have a suite of technologies?," she asks.

The argument, says Lavelle, is that by finding sympathetic partners with complementary technologies, Australian companies would increase their market capitalisation and therefore be more likely to qualify for international investment.

"One of the problems with mergers and acquisitions is individual ego," says Lavelle. "That has to be managed. At the end of the day, the health of the company and moving the technology into a product is the goal."

While people in the industry are extremely pleased with the support they have received from government, Lavelle says they are nervous that it won't last.

She says she has met with "as many bureaucrats as I could to make sure that we continue to receive the government support that biotech has received in the last few years. "I have detected that some parts of government have started to become more shy about supporting biotechnology because of the performance of the stock exchange in the last little while."

Lavelle sees this go-between role as an important one for AusBiotech, because individual companies "don't have the time to be talking to bureaucrats and making sure that they understand what our agenda is".

While not specifically related to biotechnology, another issue that Lavelle has identified in the industry is the tendency interstate rivalry and parochialism. "It's the Sydney versus Melbourne thing. It's the Brisbane versus Melbourne thing. It's the WA versus the east coast thing," she says. "I think that some of the companies and, to some extent, some of the governments have become aware that they need to really revise their thinking on that. We are a smallish player in the global scene. We cannot afford to reduce our strength by having competition across state borders."

The biotechnology roundtable discussion between state premiers held at the BIO conference earlier this year, and a second one to be held at the upcoming AusBiotech conference in Perth, is one way to overcome this problem, says Lavelle. And she wants to see this type of roundtable discussion happening twice a year. "Industry wants to see that sort of initiative take place so that they can get a sense that state infighting is not really going to help," she says.

Culture shock

AusBiotech needs to help companies focus on strengthening their corporate governance, says Lavelle. "It can be a culture shock for people that have been involved in other types of companies to come into small biotechs," says Lavelle. "They're not cash positive for a start, which could be unusual in that business experience. The risk profile could be very different from other sorts of companies that they're used to."

Lavelle sees AusBiotech playing a role in educating incoming board members and new CEOs about the characteristics of the biotech sector.

AusBiotech and the ASX recently launched a code of best practice for reporting by biotech companies, following a long consultation phase with the industry and investment community. One of the issues that the code hopes to address is the lack of investor understanding of the biotechnology industry and Lavelle sees the code as an example of how AusBiotech can educate investors.

She also wants AusBiotech, and the biotechnology sector in general, to use the media more effectively. "There are not a lot of mainstream articles that are understood by John Citizen that are around biotechnology," she says.

Lobbying role

Lavelle is also keen for AusBiotech to lobby government to help remove some of the barriers that the biotechnology industry faces. Such barriers include taxation, investment and legislative issues, as well as common characteristics of doing business in Australia, such as the so-called 'tyranny of distance'.

Lavelle gives the example of registration. "If you're an international company wanting to register a product in Australia, it's cheaper and more straightforward than if you're an Australian company," she says. "We'd like to see some resolution, so that they can be playing on an even field -- especially because we're talking about Australian jobs and the Australian economy."

While Lavelle notes that these are not new issues, and AusBiotech has tried to address them in the past, she wants to see them tackled in a more assertive manner. She also wants AusBiotech to partner with key people in the industry who can provide advice, so that the organisation can talk to the government about the remedies, rather than just the problems.

Over the next 12 to 18 months, Lavelle also wants to sit down with Austrade and talk about making overseas missions more specific to the country they are targeting.

"General missions are great, especially for familiarity for people that are new to the sector," she says. "But I think that now the sector's getting more mature, more developed, particularly on the east coast, it's time that we can start targeting our missions -- taking specific technologies into specific countries, rather than taking anybody who wants to go."

Sector specifics

AusBiotech also has to become better at representing its members, says Lavelle. "When you've got such diverse members, from CSL down to a one-man show, sometimes it is a challenge to appropriately represent all those of people," she says.

Lavelle is also conscious that the biotechnology industry consists of many different sectors -- agriculture, bioinformatics, and human medicine. These sectors have different concerns and motivations and AusBiotech needs to speak appropriately for these sub-groups, says Lavelle.

One area in which Lavelle has taken a particular interest is medical devices. "I see this as a new area that is different," she says, "They have products. The products are on the market. They're looking for export opportunities. They're often cash positive. They have some different characteristics, and so therefore their needs are a little different, and we need to take that on board."

Lavelle is trying to structure AusBiotech's small staff to accommodate these different member groups. "That's an internal structural thing that I'm thinking about at the moment and it needs to be dealt with," she says.

Lavelle also wants AusBiotech to continue "working hard on the policy area". Following on from policy on stem cells, she sees genetically modified crops and tainting as another policy area that AusBiotech will develop in the next few weeks.

Networking vs conferencing

Events such as the annual AusBiotech conference are important for "gathering together people", says Lavelle. "People feel the need to gather together on an annual basis and really catch up with what's going on in other parts of their industry," she says. "A lot of these people are so flat out being a CEO day to day that having an annual gathering is an efficient way of using their time."

However, as the biotechnology industry consolidates, Lavelle does not see AusBiotech's role as a networking facilitator. "I think we've moved beyond just the cocktail party and coffee. A lot of people in the sector are networked to some extent at this stage," she says.

However, Lavelle does feel that AusBiotech can "provide a focus for small companies who very often work in a sense of isolation".

Finally, Lavelle is keen on strengthening Australia's ties with its regional partners in the Asia Pacific. "We can use our regional partners very effectively to help us with the transition from innovation to product," she says. "That's something that I'd like to explore much further in the next couple of years."

But before addressing this big "shopping list of things to do", Lavelle's first task was more prosaic -- to find new premises for the organisation. With the move completed to the Melbourne suburb Malvern, Lavelle is happy. "I think we've done OK, given the budget we had."

Now her attention has turned to the rest of the list. "I can't see that I'll be bored and I can't see that I'll run out of tasks in the next five years," she says.

Asked if her leadership will affect AusBiotech, Lavelle says: "I hope so! Everybody has their own style. And I have to say it's been a very hectic three months."

The AusBiotech 2005 conference kicks off in Perth on Monday, November 21.