World-class R&D is in the Arc’s DNA
Five part Q&A with Sam Hyde, CEO, TTP
1. What is TTP, and who does TTP work with?
The Technology Partnership (TTP) invents, develops, and manufactures new technologies for clients around the world. Our aim is to maximise technology’s impact through the development of gamechanging new products and bringing these to market, rather than solely scientific discovery, working across high-growth sectors such as life sciences, telecommunications, high value industrial and advanced manufacturing.
We work with clients that vary from start-ups, corporate MedTech companies to multinationals, doing everything from inventing and realising technologies and products, to building production lines which support deployment.
We’ve also created 20 companies ourselves, including one of the largest GSM/3G mobile phone technologies in 2000 which was floated at a valuation of $1bn before being acquired by Motorola, and two new businesses we are nurturing today in molecular diagnostics for pharmacies and GP surgeries to provide point-of-care super-rapid COVID-19 and flu diagnosis, and ultra-high speed cell sorting.
TTP does a lot of work in the UK, about one-third, and the Oxford-Cambridge Arc is a key source of partners for us.
2. How does the work undertaken by TTP support new discoveries through to the commercialisation of scientific breakthroughs?
TTP spots the intersection between commercial application, technological potential, and consumer need. We’re trained to understand everything from the development pathway and the risks of translating emerging technologies into a product, to user need and how these products interact with people.
Sometimes we start with a commercial idea, while in other instances we begin with a known application or known science that works on a benchtop, but not with the right kind of performance or design. People underestimate the complexity of taking a product created in a lab and then taking it mainstream. We need to consider technical performance characteristics, commercial viability, and how that product meets user demands.
We have a mixed model of business: we fluidly adapt the multidisciplinary teams we build and the expertise we offer to bring the right skills at the right time, to match the specific requirements of our clients. Start-ups will have different needs to large corporates, but essentially our role is the conversion of science to reality. DNANudge is a prime example of this from the start-up side where we designed and developed their PCR test from initial concept all the way through to manufacturing high volumes of prototypes onsite. Corporates might want a different scope of work, focusing on specific aspects of the technology or proprietary expertise, or they might want also want complete concept to production support.
In every instance the key thing is to be agile, rapidly adapting teams to meet new challenges at every stage matching the resources needed by our partners at that stay. This tends to mean bringing expertise ranging across the spectrum of hardware and software engineering, and sciences from physics to biology to materials. We also need to help our partners navigate the nuances of product and regulatory frameworks, and how to manufacture at volume.
3. Why is the Oxford-Cambridge Arc such an interesting region of scientific enterprise and innovation?
In the Arc, skills and expertise collides with commercial insight and academic research to create an ecosystem. TTP is a critical part of this ‘glue’, and an important part of the Arc, meeting the needs of enterprises looking to commercialise innovation and training people. The range of businesses in the Arc provides a strong base of education and experience. There is a strong flow of people between companies that fosters partnerships, broadens training, develops the whole ecosystem. We recruit from academia, start-ups and corporates, while some of our alumni go on to support start-ups and established corporates to further R&D elsewhere.
When we survey comparative innovation centres across the world, not least in the U.S., the scale of Oxford and Cambridge is really small. These two cities cannot compete on the world stage in isolation, and so the Arc is needed to bridge these leading clusters to elevate the region’s international standing. This is especially true for cutting-edge technologies where the UK has a world-leading position, like in cell therapies, where we can expect a drain in businesses in this area without a regional outlook.
4. What do you see as being the greatest opportunities and barriers to invention and the commercialisation of new ideas in the Arc?
The opportunities are in scale, doing what is done well with more regional collaboration. The Arc benefits from huge inward investment, and an extraordinary number of new enterprises; we can do more with the ingredients we already have and there is wider momentum if we invest in skills within the Arc, attract expertise from overseas, and train those people in key areas to be better. These are all essential components of a globally important knowledge region.
The barriers have been spoken about over many years, and these are difficult to overcome. Infrastructure and housing are the first hurdle, particularly as growing enterprises like TTP and the clients we work with hire a lot of graduates who might not be able to afford to live in central locations and cannot live remotely due to the lack of transport options available. The practical reality for knowledge-intensive, inventive, and lab-based companies means that we need to work in-person and interactively. We must create communities that make access to work, housing, and amenities, as easy as possible.
There has been a push recently to create these places which fit into the wider sciences ecosystem. TTP has partnered with Bruntwood SciTech in Cambridge to create a life sciences hub which supports early-stage innovators both in terms of office and laboratory needs as well as the type of equipment occupiers will need. Nevertheless, we need more investment into infrastructure particularly where the integration and transport between these hubs is poor. A lack of infrastructure slows the extent to which we can share knowledge and build cross-regional teams, and fold in lots of communities in the Arc which would be good ground for further growth and development.
Another related issue is in scale up space we’re missing: getting people to the scale required before we lose them to other geographies. One of our clients started in Scotland creating antibodies for screening blood and we helped them develop it into a microarray diagnostic that will revolutionise screening of donated blood, and produced the manufacturing solution. They need to scale their facilities and initially looked to Cambridge as the next step. They eventually chose Switzerland due to better access to the facilities and government support.
Broader funding streams are also necessary. There’s more venture funding in the UK now than there ever has been, but this performs better at the seed scale. When companies look to grow, they’re encouraged to move their headquarters and critical mass closer to capital sources, and this often means relocating to the U.S. rather than staying in the Arc. To retain these businesses in the UK, not just regional outposts, but thriving corporate entities which contribute to the regional economy through job creation, skills, and economic output, we need to make access to funding more streamlined.
Finally, there is a question about availability of patient capital. Not every opportunity fits the venture capital model, and VC from overseas can potentially dilute and shift capital and returns abroad which is value lost to the Arc. More patient capital with high returns in the long run would fit many profiles of innovation in the Arc. The British Business Bank is a start, but it’s far too small in scale and doesn’t touch the serious technology concepts where £10m or more is required to get to proof of principle. If we want to keep more of the major UK innovations created in the Arc in the region, we need to find ways of funding these businesses through the early stages with patient capital. This will require government to align with other longer term funding sources such as pension funds.
5. What’s at stake societally for the UK and the wider world, and how has TTP made a difference?
TTP has been bringing ideas to reality for 35 years, from mobile phones to cell therapies, and has supported thousands of corporates and hundreds of start-ups. We cover a massive spectrum, and we are heavily involved in the next generation of technologies and products that will be the businesses of the future, from neurotechnology, to satellite communications, to renewable energy generation.
Technology is the fundamental driver for change and progress. If the Arc and the UK is to benefit from this commercially, we need to focus our efforts. How much funding goes into commercialisation must align with the amount of funding into academic research to ensure we’re enabling new ideas to find their feet and grow as new businesses. There’s a huge gap here; sustainable long-term business growth is reliant on access to capital at every stage, and the upshot is that these technologies might not make it despite their potential to revolutionise healthcare, our daily lives, and making industry more efficient and sustainable.
To take an idea and make it reality, innovation can’t just be left to the whim of where capital is floating around. This must be choreographed and channelled to where it’s needed; where we want to be training people in industries of the future where people add value; learning skills and deploying them commercially, to the benefit of broader society.
What we can create in the Arc is an engine for business and people growth – an engine for development. In doing so, we create better people, and better people create better businesses, with better value, generating better and more refined skills.
This will happen. Technology is the pathway to future value and social prosperity. The question is whether this will happen in the Arc.
Get in touch
