Comment by Simon Goldman, investment director, UCL Technology Fund
Biomedical platform technologies are appealing because they can create impact (and therefore revenues) in multiple markets or indications, with less investment needed to get there. The commonalities between products arising from a platform, such as a shared manufacturing process, result in scalability. Venture capitalists adore this because it increases the chances of realising a much bigger return for a given investment – the same process produces multiple revenue streams. But they are only going to value the platform in all its glory when it is actually demonstrated its potential, as we have seen for gene therapy platforms in the last year or so. So that is why it is crucial for developers of platform technologies to run as hard and fast as they can to show that it actually works in one first, real-world application – even if tempted to invest effort in showing just how broadly it could be…
