Team:UNSW Australia/Commercialisation


Team: UNSW Australia

Commercialisation

& Pricing Pressures

Overview

Ultimately, we analysed the current market in an attempt to understand the problem of pricing pressures within Australia. We thought carefully and creatively about how Assemblase could elevate some of this pressure providing ‘good’ to a variety of communities. Through engaging with a variety of stakeholders such as Dr Dominic Glover, Nathalie Rafae and Tip Piumsomboon we understood the overall problem and how Assemblase could act as a solution to reduce price pressure whilst, improving innovation. During this process, we learned the interconnected nature of problems surrounding price pressure in the Australian Economy. This is referred to as wicked problems and as such relies on a variety of solutions. From this knowledge as well as, our engagement with the community we employed a variety of methods to fix this problem. Through providing examples when they were absent or inaccessible with a successful business plan as well as, producing a versatile good that could revolutionise the manufacturing process of Paclitaxel. Assemblase has also been demonstrated to work with any multistep enzyme reaction. Through this consideration and engagement, we ensured the commercial viability of Assemble maximising the impact for the community.

Consideration

In our investigation of commercialisation, we considered the impact on the community – being a reduction in price pressure on goods. From these considerations we further explored potential markets Assemblase could enter to maximise the impact on the community. Our key considerations are as follows;

  1. Currently there were attempts to improve multi-step reaction inefficiencies. We realised Assemblase could provide a novel solution to a well-documented problem1.
  2. Assemblase could be applied to manufacturing lines that use enzyme valued at $5.8 Billion2. This market consists of therapeutics, consumer goods, textiles, industrials and bioremediation. Assemblase’s applications would make these manufacturing lines more efficient resulting in a reduction in price pressure.
  3. Currently, there is uncertainty in the Australian economy seen through the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rising consistently since 20163.

Consumer Price Index Australia

Engagement

Through consulting Dr Dominic Glover as well as, analysis of the cancer market we realised that there was a real problem with inefficiency in Paclitaxel manufacturing that was plaguing the Australian community. This problem could be addressed through utilising Assemblase as a product that could be incorporated in manufactures production lines.
This led to the creation of a business plan, Investor Slidedeck and Pitchbook which was created in conjunction, with Nathalie Rafae from UNSW founders. These items were then distributed to a variety of venture capital firms and accelerators to incorporate this community’s opinion that invests $3.5 Billion4 in start-ups each year in Australia.
Additionally, innovation within Synthetic Biology was discussed with Tip Piumsomboon from Blackbird Capital one of Australia’s largest Venture Capital Firm. Through discussing what is currently going on in Australia as well as, the Venture capital climate we were able to determine that there was a barrier for individuals to commercialise their ideas as there were no easily available examples in an Australian context. We decided that we would use our project as an open-source example for the community of how they can commercialise their here .

Integration

Through our engagement seen above, we were able to validate our concerns as well as, the problem associated with commercialisation. Considering the advice, we received from Nathalie Rafae and Tip Piumsomboon it was decided to discover how we could incorporate Assemblase as a commercial product with integrations summarised below:

  1. For Assemblase to have the largest impact on the community it has to be adaptable. This led to incorporation of two pathways and testing with FRET in the laboratory to demonstrate its adaptability to any multistep Biochemical reaction
  2. We decided to create a scaffold for those to commercialise their idea.
  3. Additionally, we produced an array of educational tools which show anyone in the community how to turn their idea into a reality improving innovation.

References

  1. Britton J, Raston CL. Multi-step continuous-flow synthesis. Chemical Society Reviews. 2017;46(5):1250-71.
  2. Singh R, Kumar M, Mittal A, Mehta PK. Microbial enzymes: industrial progress in 21st century. 3 Biotech. 2016 Dec 1;6(2):174.
  3. 6401.0 - Consumer Price Index, Australia, Jun 2019 [Internet]. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2019 [cited 9 October 2019]. Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6401.0
  4. McCauley, A. (2019). Startup Aus. [online] Sua-gateway-files.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com. Available at: https://sua-gateway-files.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/Crossroads_V.pdf [Accessed 8 Oct. 2019].