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Lord Sainsbury of Turville

25th anniversary of the Invention of Monocolonal Antibodies

QE II Conference Centre, London

Thursday, July 13, 2000

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I am delighted to join in this celebration of world-class science today. César Milstein?s work has yielded much for health and wealth over the last quarter century and promises still more for the future. The benefits of monoclonal antibodies are there for all to see - from the development of diagnostic tests to new treatments for disease. César Milstein?s work has contributed significantly to the global strength of the biopharmaceutical and diagnostic industry, has provided a whole generation of scientists with the most versatile of biological tools, and it will continue to be an inspiration to future generations of scientists for a long time to come.

This success story has I believe important lessons for us all. It demonstrates that breakthrough innovations come usually from basic research. If, therefore, a country wants to achieve a high level of innovation, it must first of all support and nourish the excellence of its basic research. And that in turn means supporting individual creative scientists and giving them the opportunity to pursue their own scientific interests. For the same reason it is a great mistake to think that the way to achieve a high level of innovation is to move funds from basic research to applied research.

This fundamental point is also I think demonstrated by the record of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge which has been "home" to ten Nobel prizes, six in chemistry and four in physiology or medicine, including that of César Milstein, and starting with Fred Sanger?s first prize in 1958. What I believe made the LMB such an amazing success was the inspired leadership of people such as Max Perutz and Aaron Klug who were able to recognise scientific excellence in others and then provide them with the opportunity to get on with their work.

I see my most important role as Minister of Science as being, therefore to maintain and enhance the excellence of the science base. I was delighted that the Government was able to announce with the Wellcome Trust at the time of the last Comprehensive Spending Review the Ł750 million Joint Infrastructure Fund, and I was extremely pleased that we were able last week to follow it up with another Ł1 billion package of support. The additional capital investment will ensure that UK have world class facilities for world class research. Our announcement also recognises the importance of developing the scientists of the future, with an increase in postgraduate stipends that will reward first class talent.

Another important event of recent weeks was the study of the Institute of Scientific Information which showed that British research produced 13% of the world?s top papers in 1998 as measured across a wide spectrum of disciplines. This is a significant increase from 1981, when less than 9% of the world?s top papers originated from British research. These figures are extremely encouraging and confirm the high quality of research being done in Britain today.

In the past we have been extremely successful in this country in turning our scientific excellence into profitable innovation in a number of industries which depend on elite science such as aerospace, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Monoclonal antibodies are an excellent example. And the current period of rapid and discontinuous changes in many branches of science provides British industry with a unique opportunity.

But we will only be able to fully exploit this opportunity if we have in place the incentives and mechanisms to encourage scientists to turn their knowledge into wealth and improvements in the quality of our lives. I see, therefore, my second task as Minister of Science as ensuring that we have the right environment to stimulate innovations. I also believe that this task in no way clashes with the imperative of maintaining and enhancing the excellence of the science base. If one looks at the universities that have arguably contributed the most to innovation and their local economies in the USA, places such as Stanford, MIT and Berkley, they are also among the top research universities.

As I mentioned before, today we are not only remembering César Milstein?s outstanding science, but also its subsequent exploitation. We are here to applaud this world class science which has contributed to a therapeutics industry worth $1.4 billion worldwide last year and projected to rise to almost $3 billion next year. Of the 369 biotech medicines in development 68 are antibody based. And ? as we shall hear ? two of the UK?s largest biotech companies ? The Celltech Group and Cambridge Antibody Technology ? are major players in therapeutic engineered antibodies. These companies and others are developing highly promising treatments for cancer, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The immunodiagnostic sector has matured to provide tools for use in the early diagnosis of cancer, assessing cardiac disorders, detecting viral infections and pregnancy testing.

At present the UK is leading Europe in biotechnology. Since 1997, the number of specialist companies has increased by nearly 50% to almost 300, employing an estimated 14,000 people. Our biotechnology companies are maturing and delivering products. Europe?s public biotech companies have over 60 products in late stage clinical trials, 75% are from UK companies. Leading companies such as Celltech are now appearing on the FTSE100. The UK is undoubtedly well placed to develop its competitive position in biotechnology.

Today?s scientists have better access to business ventures than the scientists of 25 years ago. Aspects of patenting, intellectual property rights and entrepreneurship are all now taught at university. This helps to raise awareness of the potential of science to our young researchers at an early stage in their careers.

Since the 1970s, the structures for exploiting intellectual property arising from publicly-funded research have changed dramatically. For many years, all patenting of public sector research results was done through the National Research and Development Corporation alone. This is no longer the case. The successor of the NRDC, the British Technology Group, was privatised in 1992. It has gone on to become globally successful in the commercial exploitation of scientific and technological research. Much of its market advantage comes from the effective management of intellectual property.

Today, the freedom and responsibility for seeking ways to exploit research is now firmly in the hands of the researchers, the funders or the universities. We must provide incentives for inventors. And we must have licensing strategies that protect key applications but do not stifle academic freedom. We have introduced a range of measures to transform the relationship between universities and business as universities rise to the challenge of the knowledge driven economy.

A key new measure that Government has introduced is the Higher Education Reach Out to Business and the Community fund. This aims to provide the opportunity for Universities to develop further their capabilities in working with business and other partners. Demand for the first and second rounds was strong. It was particularly pleasing to see the diversity of projects the fund has been able to support. Last year, the Ł60million awarded to first round winners funded business incubator units, programmes for staff exchange and provided consultancy and other services to SMEs. The outcome of the second call will be announced shortly. By then we would expect to have supported successfully the majority of Universities in England and Northern Ireland in improving their interface with business.

We have also focussed support through the University Challenge Fund, awarding Ł45million to fifteen University-based consortia. With matching funds, these Universities have brought the total funds to over Ł60million. This money is now helping to support the early stages of research exploitation by providing the seed capital to fund scoping studies, market research, prototype development, and the setting up of spin-off companies. There have already been a substantial number of new ventures benefiting from these investment funds. Given the success of the first round, we will be taking advantage of a further Ł10million from the Treasury towards another competition in the near future.

Government support for University Challenge has proved a vital catalyst to the provision of finance for commercial exploitation. We have complemented this by establishing centres for entrepreneurship through the Science Enterprise Challenge. These centres will incorporate the teaching of enterprise into science and engineering courses with the aim of stimulating entrepreneurship. Last September we announced the allocation of Ł25million to establish eight centres of enterprise in the UK. Last month, we were pleased to announce awards to a further four universities, enabling new centres to be established at Durham, Warwick, Ulster and Oxford. The centres will develop the skills required by our future business leaders, helping them to create commercial vision. Furthermore, the centres will accelerate the development of links between the commercial and academic worlds.

A further scheme supported by Government aims to stop technology leakage from the UK by helping to improve the strategic management of intellectual property. The Biotechnology Exploitation Platform (BEP) Challenge encourages the formation of consortia between academic institutions and intermediaries with complementary bioscience research. These groups work together to hire the necessary knowledge management skills to build portfolios of intellectual property. To date, a pilot scheme has established 24 new start-up companies, generated over Ł4million of income from licensing deals and collaborations with industry and resulted in the approval of 83 new patents. In August last year, I announced a first call in the follow-up, full Challenge worth over Ł12million. We will be announcing the winners later this month. The next call for proposals is likely to be announced in August 2000.

Over the last decade Government Departments and Research Councils have supported collaborative research through a number of programmes under the LINK scheme. LINK has proved consistently popular with the biotechnology community and a number of very successful collaborations have come out of these programmes.

On Tuesday I was very pleased to launch a new LINK programme to support collaborative research in Applied Genomics for healthcare applications. This addresses one of the major challenges identified by the Foresight Healthcare Panel; accelerating the transfer of genomics knowledge to industry to boost competitiveness and enhance healthcare delivery.

The new programme is sponsored jointly by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Medical Research Council and the Department of Trade and Industry - each of whom will contribute up to Ł5 million. The total of Ł15 million of public support will be matched by an equal contribution from industrial participants making this the largest ever LINK programme. The programme will assist UK companies, particularly SMEs, to develop platform technologies in areas, such as gene regulation and proteomics, in collaboration with the science base and the larger pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies. There has already been a lot of interest in the programme and we anticipate some very useful work and good collaborations will come out of it.

Finally, let me say a brief word about what I see as my third task as Minister of Science, that of restoring public confidence in Science we must not underestimate the ethical, social and legal issues raised by biotechnology. It is worth remembering that in 1975, the year that César Milstein published his landmark paper in the Journal NATURE, a moratorium on recombinant DNA experiments was called for as leading scientists from around the world met in California to debate the safety and ethical concerns raised by such research.

We need therefore, to have in place an effective framework of regulation and debate to ensure that the public is confident that the benefits of scientific advance outweigh the risks.

That is why following last year?s public consultation, the Government set up a new, comprehensive strategic advisory structure for biotechnology that enables a much greater public debate to take place. This included the Human Genetic Commission and the sister body Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission. Together with the Food Standards Agency, these bodies will consider the ethical, legal, social and safety aspects of emerging technologies and their benefits and risks.

I believe that the Government has made substantial progress on the first two issues I have mentioned today, the excellence of our basic research and the environment for stimulating innovation, and some modest progress on the third one, that of restoring public confidence in science. But there is more to be done, and the Science and Innovation White Paper which we will publish shortly will cover all three issues. As today we celebrate the achievements of British science, I hope the White Paper will help to create the right climate for the young scientists of today to draw inspiration from the work of people like Cesar Milstein and go on to do outstanding and creative science which produces wealth and improves the quality of our lives.

Other speeches by Lord Sainsbury of Turville

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