Monash boosts commerce

"Monash is making a major commitment to the commercialisation process. We have gone out on a limb in many ways, in doing what we have done."

So says Monash University’s new commercialisation director at the School of Biomedical Sciences, Roland Scollay. Scollay recently returned from the US where he spent eight years working in biotech companies including a spell at Genteric.

"We have a team of around 20 people working purely on the commercialisation of research. We have business development managers, a CEO, a COO, legal people, patent attorneys, accountants and admin staff too," he said.

Scollay said the new team would be dedicated to rasing the profile of Monash as a prime commercial centre for research in Australia.

“We will be looking at all sorts of ways to make our work commercially viable. We will look at licensing, contract research and deals with partners. If there is an opportunity we will look at it,” he said.

Although commercial spin-offs were the thing for universities to do in recent years, Scollay said he was was less enthusiastic about the format as a viable commercial-isation avenue.

“Up until recently, spin-off fever was all the rage. But now it is less popular; it has proved that it has a limited useful life, and that it is very time consuming to set up,” he said.

The university will also look at ways to capitalise on its expertise and IP by offering advanced training, for which it is developing new approaches.

“We are investing over $50,000 in going to Bio. Ten people are going from the uni, and we are having a stand. We want to raise our profile in the US, to make some business deals and to do lots of PR for our campus.

“We are spending serious money. We are serious about this,” he added.