Strategies for Technology Acquisition in the Japanese Biotech Industry : Technology Adoption and the Issues of University Collaboration from the Perspective of Patent Information

ABSTRACT

The utilization, on the part of private biotech companies, of research outcome produced by universities and public research institutions - research bodies that consume half of the national funds related to biotechnology research - is critical for the development of the biotechnology industry. To this end, the cultivation of biotech enterprises that would serve to bridge industry with universities and public institutions is essential.

Recognizing that technology strategies are very important to the success of biotech companies, attention should primarily be given to the following two issues: (1) securing the seeds of burgeoning companies, and (2), once companies have gotten off the ground, forging strategic links between them and universities or public research institutions or both. These two issues will be the focus of the following report.

In regard to (1), this report surveys the circumstances of inventions by public university professors1. In particular, it examines the cases in which the research outcome of such faculty was commercially utilized. With respect to (2), this report surveys the patent filing trends and the external collaboration activities of 138 specially selected biotech companies.

(1): The patent applications for the majority of technologies developed by university faculty have been filed by existing companies. Thus, when these technologies are transferred to new biotech companies, it is necessary to clarify past licensing rights in order to ensure the safe utilization of these seeds.

(2): Even after companies are established, they usually file only a small number of patent applications. In fact, out of all the companies surveyed, only 40% had filed any applications at all. Statistics such as these tell us that technological research and development in the biotech industry is still lagging. Moreover, seeing that very few applications are made through the conjunction of private industry and public university or research institutions, it is apparent that external collaboration is also very limited.

When such biotech companies have ties to major pharmaceutical companies, for instance, they gain strong patenting capabilities which enable them to have not only strong technology development programs, but also an established patent strategy. Though the influx of university faculty into the directing boards and research teams of biotech companies has heightened expectations for the amount and originality of their technology development, it is nonetheless essential that these companies have a technology strategy, and most of all a patent strategy. In order to support biotech companies in their efforts to acquire patents, it is necessary for public research-and-development programs to give their financial support and for the government to establish laws that would enable universities to grant licenses for their research output.1:Because public universities in Japan cannot not be recognized as legal entities,inventions by their faculty are filed under national auspices, or by private companies. In either case, the actual circumstances of the invention go undocumented. (Public universities, as of April 2004, are now able to possess a legal status.)