The University of Edinburgh’s School of Chemistry has invested £1.2 million upgrading its Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Mass Spectroscopy instrumentation to be among the most advanced in Europe.
It is a strategically significant development for Scotland to have this facility here and further increases Scotland’s standing as a scientific centre of excellence in the UK.
We spoke to Stuart Duncan, Business Development Executive at the School and three Scottish companies that collaborate with the Department - Charlie Bavington from Glycomar, Ian Archer from Ingenza and Mark Wright from Piramal - to find out how important this investment is to science in Scotland.
Stuart Duncan told us “the new investment will deliver higher sensitivity, shorter measurement times, high throughput, better accuracy and superior characterisation than ever before. This world-class quality equipment strongly aligns us to other centres of excellence in the UK.”
Supporting small businesses
Stuart told us, “We work with industry across a wide range of sectors. More often in the past it’s been related to the chemical sciences industry, but this investment strengthens our links to the life sciences sector, particularly as a number of SMEs working in that field couldn’t afford to buy and run the equipment. The investment allows us to work with a wider range of companies, and to support the local economy.”
Mark Wright from Piramal is certain of the value of the facilities to SMEs like theirs. “We couldn’t make a good business case for buying our own mass spec equipment and employing specialists to run it. It wouldn’t make business sense.”
Charlie Bavington sums it up: “It really underpins the development of small companies. It's an essential part of the skill set of an SME to be bigger than you are, by collaborating with real expert university departments. For us, we can only do so much in-house and these collaborations are an important part of our capability.”
Vital skills
But it’s not just about the equipment, it’s the expertise that goes with it. Ian Archer says, “many universities have mass spec but the expertise at Edinburgh is really appreciated." Charlie Bavington from Glycomar told us, "the University of Edinburgh has always been good at high field NMR work. It's not just the instrumentation, it's the expertise in the group which is essential for the interpretation of the data.”
Sometimes companies employ University of Edinburgh’s expertise to improve their own production processes, find efficiency savings, deal with production by-products or verify their own data. The possibilities for collaboration come in many forms.
Collaboration
Stuart Duncan told us, “Companies are increasingly recognising that innovation can derive from external collaboration. Working with academic institutions enables them to access knowledge and capability beyond their internal R&D process. This collaborative approach encourages knowledge exchange and opens doors for us, not just with industry but also with other academic institutions. Additionally this approach is aligned with government expectation that industry should have wider access to academia and that academics gain a better understanding of industry needs to support economic growth.”
Charlie Bavington from Glycomar told us, “The most important part of the relationship is with the academic. That makes the whole thing work.”
Ian Archer told us, "Universities get kudos for having a commercial partner on board in funding application. And sometimes we are approached, say, by a client who has a theory they want to test, and the R&D capabilities of a university like Edinburgh are best placed to carry out that research. These high-risk projects, if the results are good, can have a significant impact for science and are worthwhile.”
Glycomar has built a strong collaborative partnership, even co-publishing research papers together. Their first PhD student has now become a members of staff under a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) agreement. Ian said, “now we have a transfer of the skills and expertise to the company under the KTP arrangement. It is truly collaborative.”
Considerations
According to Stuart Duncan, “the tricky part is finding alignment between industry and academia so that industry gets what it needs from the relationship but at the same time the research has to be academically challenging and linked to core research outputs.” It has to be mutually beneficial.
In the past companies have found that intellectual property (IP) agreements have been difficult to negotiate. But this is becoming more common and easier to achieve. Charlie Bavington advised, “You need to be aware of the intellectual property terms before you start so it doesn't derail the collaboration.”
Both parties are looking for different things from the relationship. “Naturally businesses are more concerned with intellectual property and commercialisation, whereas for academics it’s all about publication”. So balancing the need to protect a patent against the need to publish the data can sometimes be tricky. It doesn’t have to be a barrier, as long as you have a clear understanding of each other’s needs.
All three companies we spoke to said that making sure you’re on the same wavelength as the academics is key. Ian Archer told us, “Before you do anything, discuss with the team what's technically feasible. You could have a confidentiality disclosure agreement in place if you're concerned about giving too much information, but get that capability discussion in first.”
The importance of facilities like this in Scotland cannot be underestimated. State of the art facilities like this can dramatically improve Scotland’s standing in science and enable companies here and abroad to truly innovate.
Find chemical sciences companies and facilities
Company profiles
Glycomar
Biotech company Glycomar develops therapies for inflammatory diseases, e.g. psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and respiratory inflammation, based on carbohydrate chemistry. The team works at early stage discovery and development, with natural products, primarily derived from marine organisms culminating in the development of intellectual property (IP) to take to clinical trials stage.
Visit the Glycomar website
Piramal
Piramal Healthcare UK is a contract manufacturing company which makes an antibody conjugate for targeted cancer treatment, and works in partnership with University of Edinburgh’s Mass Spectrometry team on early stage research.
Visit the Piramal website
Ingenza
Ingenza was an originally an offshoot company from Edinburgh University Chemistry department. It is an industrial biotechnology company with customer base which spans the chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food, feed and fuel industries.
Visit the Ingenza website