Profile: Roger Ashby

Bayes-Brown: You were involved in setting up the UK’s University Challenge Funds (UCF) in 1999, which went on to create 378 companies. Tell us about the fund’s beginnings.

Ashby: [Former UK prime minister] Margaret Thatcher convinced [supermarket magnate] David Sainsbury to put the money up through his Gatsby Trust to employ me for three years to look at how to commercialise university technology. It did not take long to figure out what universities wanted was money.

Other issues I identified were that universities needed the expertise to commercialise technology, that there was fierce competition between universities, and that universities were operating in silos, with faculties of chemistry not talking to faculties of medicine. So unless you have a medic who is mechanically minded, they don’t tap into the engineers who have great bits of intellectual property (IP).

I said we needed £50m ($80m) in four funds of £12.5m spread out over four areas – the south, Oxbridge, the north and Scotland. That would give you critical mass to put a decent chief executive in and pool technologies from a wide scope of universities.

But the government, by this time run by Tony Blair, decided to be more liberal, and spread the money over 14 universities. Each got £2m or £3m but never had the critical mass to get going. With the market stagnation in 2000, all the smaller venture capitalists were not interested in under £1m, so there was no follow-on finance.

It was too small, too watered down, and unfortunately there was no commercial market to follow on ideas. The government then put forward another £50m, which led to companies like IP Group coming in and saying they would raise equity funds to back university ideas. So, in a way, the UCF was the seed fund of seed funds. Now it has matured and is attracting commercial money.

It led to the creation of SetSquared – a consortium of universities with critical mass that can hire a decent management team to advise universities in the south-west.

Bayes-Brown: What would you say is the ideal model for a spin-out?

Ashby: You need a good chief executive who has been in business before and can run a business and reinvest.

Bayes-Brown: What level of involvement do you think an academic should have?

Ashby: I would turn to Prof X and say we need to bring in the business people. Your baby has been born, and now we are going to bring it up because we are good at bringing up kids. Come to the board meetings, see how we run companies, and if you are comfortable and like it, you can be a technical director or consultant.

The main point to me is that you need the critical mass. Without it, one piece of IP does not make a company. You need to look at the licensing route before spinning out.

Bayes-Brown: How does Imperial Innovations, the tech transfer office (TTO) for Imperial College London (ICL), differ from other TTOs?

Ashby: When you think about the portfolio of opportunities they have, the proven route, the ability to manage, in my mind, that is the way you should be doing tech transfer. Imperial has the mass. Also, through Imperial Innovations, ICL has an independent venture fund sitting outside the college that it can call on to invest in their technologies and which understands university tech transfer. Imperial Innovations also offers investment opportunities to Oxford, Cambridge and University College London, although deals can be held back by competition between universities.

Bayes-Brown: What can universities do to replace the lack of traditional venture capital in the UK?

Ashby: If you can get a corporate partner, you should, because they will understand your business and they have the resources. Companies themselves don’t have to invent, but they do have 250 PhDs they can chuck at decent ideas. If you invent something and get the patents right, the company can come in and pay for the development. Academics excel at being creative, but they need the partners to take it further into the business world.

Bayes-Brown: What are your thoughts on the future of UK tech transfer?

Ashby: I am not a big believer in the approach of teaching people to do tech transfer – it should be experience-led. If you have scars down your back, you are in a much better position to do tech transfer than a fresh-faced PhD. You need experienced people who can negotiate.