BioMatNet Item: Commercial Success of ECLAIR Programme - Overview

Commercial Success of ECLAIR Programme
Overview - 9. Conclusions

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FAIR-CT98-4822 Commercial Success of the ECLAIR Programme

This report on the Commercial Success of ECLAIR Programme 1999 was produced in 1999 by CPL Scientific under contract FAIR-CT98-4822. The Project Summary and Project Reports are available in separate items.

Preface
Executive Summary
Overview
1. Introduction
2. Information Collection
3. Assessment of Commercial Success
4. Sectors, Technology and Markets
5. Industrial Participation
6. Impact of Science and Technology on Commercial Development
7. Political and Legislative Environment
8. ECLAIR in the Context of European Research and Development
9. Conclusions

Overview

9. Conclusions

Overall it is clear that the participants managed to achieve their scientific objectives. The extent to which this resulted in new products varied, reflecting raw material prices, public perception, acceptability of transgenic crops and other genetic manipulated organisms or products derived from them. However, those that succeeded best were those with an industrial coordinator that took the process to market. The ability of a small company to enter a new market and achieve a national, Europe-wide or even worldwide market reflects the local situation as it has developed over the last decade, as well as the nature of the product developed. Projects generating higher value niche products, developed to the point where they can be sold to an end-user, appear to fare better than those that aimed to introduce a new crop or develop a generic process, product or use. For example, a small SME (MicroBio) has achieved a worldwide market for nematodes sold as biopesticides, at the time of writing accounting for over 90% of global sales.

In contrast, work on developing new varieties or commercializing novel crops, whether through genetic engineering or not, takes time. In general, much longer than the periods of funding available from EC or national research grants. At the same time, the global changes in the seed and agrochemical business sectors, with acquisitions and mergers, means that much of the background technology may be vested in a few very large commercial organisations, with very large development budgets in-house.

In the same way, a number of large manufacturing companies now have products on the market for which they have the processing know-how to move to production of related products quite rapidly if the raw material prices are right and there is a market demand. This requires that such groups be encouraged to participate in the present and future EC programmes, to avoid wasting money on discovering known industrial processes. However, it may be difficult to achieve this. In larger companies, involvement may have been in areas peripheral to their core business or related to generic breeding or processing activities, rather than specific product development (that is done in confidence, in-house). In several cases, however, once products had been developed to the market place and shown to be of value, larger companies acquired the SMEs. In the same way international acquisitions led to movement of ownership from EU based to US companies.

SMEs in particular stressed the value of forming networks of contacts with researchers (for example, the nematode COST Action) and potential customers (including local authorities as in the olive pest management project). These have been maintained, with researchers using the expertise gained to obtain contract work from the original participants or other companies.

Finally, it may well be that the main value, apart from the direct benefits to those companies now selling products, would appear to be the contribution made by ECLAIR in providing one of the many 'seeds' that have germinated leading to the evolving concepts of sustainability, alternative inputs to agriculture, biodegradation, environmental protection (local and global) and so on, over the last decade.

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Overview