Sharing Risk in R&D: The Case of the Protein Engineering Club

With a history in Britain of firms having difficulty justifying expenditure on long term research and university based discoveries being exploited by foreign companies, what have we learnt about the commercialisation of science? Greater collaboration among companies and academics is a much vaunted strategy. This paper considers one such collaborative venture in the field of biotechnology which has brought ICI, Glaxo, Celltech and J & E Sturge working together with universities and the Science and Engineering Research Council in 'The Protein Engineering Club' [1]. The Club concept offers firms a relatively cheap 'window' and stake in potentially highly profitable science. A portfolio approach minimises risk and intelligent management of intellectual property rights can reconcile divergent interests and straddle the gap between pre-competitive and competitive research.