Biotechnology firms in the UK increasingly access funds from financial markets, such as the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), rather than traditional venture capital (VC) firms because they are dissatisfied with the poor advice and lack of funding support from traditional VCs. In addition, many of these firms have adopted innovative business models that speed up product development processes by using highly experienced boards of directors and advisors to access external knowledge. Because previous research has focused on funding from venture capitalists, at present little is known about what sorts of business models are most appropriate for this new form of funding and how these boards and advisors are motivated by new forms of financing. This research seeks to (a) understand how these changes impact firm performance and (b) develop innovative management tools to help firms set up a powerful board, and show how that board should operate and how it should access AIM, other non-VC sources of money, and specialist advisors.Previous research on biotechnology start-ups typically draws on a model extrapolated from US experience in the 1980s, where the stages of firm development are linked to types of funding: seed funding (including university technology funds); business angels; V-C (venture capital) followed by IPO (initial public offering on financial markets) or trade sales. While the model may have once been useful, it is increasingly inappropriate for the UK as some firms are short-circuiting stages of the cycle, while others are developing alternative routes. The fact that AIM is now larger than VC as a total supply of finance to UK technology in general and to biotechnology in particular emphasises how the UK has moved towards a distinctive market-based biotechnology funding model.Under this new model, university spin-outs and other start-up firms exploit strong intellectual property over their technology to go straight from founding to forming a highly-skilled board of directors. These boards develop credentials impressive enough for a medium sized public-listed-company very early and are used to access levels of external, specialist professional knowledge normally associated with well established firms. Firms adopting this model rely much more heavily on high powered boards and specialists for managerial advice (rather than VCs and university technology transfer offices). It has been assumed that this knowledge outsourcing strategy could not work as start-up firms lack the resources to attract such high-level advisors. However, preparatory research and first hand experience (one of the proposers is on several biotechnology boards) suggests that the practice is increasingly important. The two strands of research within the project - funding innovations and new managerial knowledge arrangements - are closely connected. It seems clear that using high-powered boards and high levels of external advisors makes a young firm more attractive for floatation on public markets, enabling them to draw on much larger sources of funding. While the opportunity to be involved in public visible, fast growth firms attracts the high-powered boards in the first place. By better understanding these changes, and developing management tools to assit firms this project will asssit the development of high-tech biotech firms within the UK economy and extend the application of innovative forms of financing.

Ghana

New methods for the preparation of extended structures are rightly highlighted as being of great importance to the UK. The EPSRC Grand Challenge 'Directed Assembly of Extended Structures with Targeted Properties' (referred to as the DA Grand Challenge) is championed by some of the UK's leading academic scientists. Interest from pharmaceutical companies in this initiative has been excellent, particularly based on the nucleation and crystallisation targets outlined in the Grand Challenge Documentation. Impact of the Grand Challenge Network on other areas is much less evident, although it is clear that the basic premise of the Challenge fits many other sectors. In this Established Career Proposal my vision is to demonstrate, through both transformative science and personal leadership, how the central tenets of the DA Grand Challenge Idea can be translated across disciplines. In particular I will focus on two areas, increasing the impact of the network in the chemicals sector, with a special emphasis on transformative new routes to heterogeneous zeolite catalysts (which strongly fits another EPSRC priority area), and novel multifunctionality in medical delivery agents. The proposed programme is firmly rooted in the EPSRC remit but is designed to be outward looking to maximise transdisciplinary impact cutting across to other important areas of science. The specific science proposed here focuses on nanoporous materials. Zeolites are one of the most important class of industrially applied catalysts we have. Manipulation of zeolites into hierarchical porous structures and ultra-thin layers has also risen to great prominence as a method of introducing new and beneficial features into zeolite catalysts. The journal Science rated this type of research as one of the ten most important current areas of current science, and so its importance is recognised internationally. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are some of the most exciting and fast-developing materials that have been prepared in the last decade or so. The great versatility of the chemistry of these solids leads to ultra-high porosity, extreme flexibility, post synthetic modification potential and many other interesting and conceivably useful attributes. Because of this wide ranging chemistry and function, potential applications of these solids range from gas storage, separation and delivery, catalysis, and sensing all the way to biology and medicine.