That goes for research funders too. Cancer Research UK and its innovation arm, Cancer Research Horizons, sent a few representatives to mainland China and Hong Kong last year to see first-hand how its life sciences sector operates. They came back dizzy with the scale of the research infrastructure. The National Natural Science Foundation of China – the country’s primary source of basic research funding – receives around 400,000 research proposals a year.
One thing was clear: in the life sciences, China is simply too big to ignore.
With a warming Government, a willing academic sector, and an enormous scientific ecosystem to tap into, it seems collaboration is inevitable. However, for early-stage start-ups, particularly university spin-outs, the path is less straightforward. The speed and efficiency that makes China a compelling collaborator is also what makes it a potential threat. Many founders are now faced with a difficult decision about how to protect their intellectual property.
Patents pending
To prevent competitors copying their ideas, early-stage companies have two options: file patents or stay in stealth mode. Patents give companies exclusive rights to use their inventions for a certain period. Companies in stealth mode, on the other hand, delay patent filing and develop their ideas in secret and hope no one else gets there first.
With the rise of AI-driven tools that can pick holes in patents, coupled with the pace at which China can run trials, the second option is becoming more attractive. If you come out of stealth, a Chinese biotech might adapt your idea, overtake you in the clinic and beat you to market.
Tony Hickson, Cancer Research Horizons’ Chief Business Officer, was part of the trip to China last year and sees this as a potential turning point. Will more investors start encouraging start-ups in their portfolios to stay in stealth mode? How will that work for academic spin-outs, which are built on a body of published research? The traditional patent system, while far from perfect, allows researchers to advance collective knowledge while preserving potential commercial value. If more companies start staying in stealth mode and we go back to a world driven by trade secrets, we may see a lot of research duplicated.
However this tension between patents and trade secrets plays out, Tony and the rest of the organisation are scoping out how to work with China. Even as spin-outs navigate a more complex landscape, the global life sciences ecosystem is moving forward, and there’s much to celebrate. If patients around the world can access the new treatments and technologies coming out of China, then people’s lives will improve. After all, cancer does not care which country a treatment comes from, so why should we?
We are all following the same track. Let’s saddle up the fire horse and take the jumps together.
