Summit TV speaks to William Modisakeng a biotechnology intellectual property (IP) specialist and Donrich Jordaan a biotech entrepreneur and board member of the Biotech Industry Association of South Africa about intellectual property management.

Stephan Lamprecht: The South African government has poured upwards of R600million into the biotechnology sector over the last few years. To talk about this exciting field of innovation is William Modisakeng a biotechnology intellectual property (IP) specialist, and Donrich Jordaan a biotech entrepreneur and board member of the Biotech Industry Association of South Africa. Donrich, what would you say is the main reason behind government’s motivation for investing so heavily in the biotechnology sector?

Donrich Jordaan: Biotechnology is of course part and parcel of the knowledge economy, and government has realised that for South Africa to prosper in the future we must be strong in the knowledge economy and therefore we must invest in biotechnology. I think it has been a very bold step of government to invest all of these resources in biotechnology…

Stephan Lamprecht: From your point of view as an entrepreneur are the opportunities there?

Donrich Jordaan: There are definitely opportunities.

Stephan Lamprecht: William, speaking about intellectual property - what is the main difference if I’m in biotechnology in terms of my approach to intellectual property?

William Modisakeng: One of the main differences that one should appreciate right from the beginning is that biotechnology is a knowledge-based business, and one naturally has to look into protecting that knowledge and exploiting it properly. The other difference is how biotech gets that information - the time period is much longer than in most businesses, therefore it’s becoming more and more important for biotechnologists to protect their inventions as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Stephan Lamprecht: Let’s unpack that. If you say it’s a longer cycle in terms of getting from the idea to getting it into the market - having to do research and development, getting certification for certain practices and so on - it’s a long time before I can start getting any income to recoup that R&D investment. In order to do that I need to have something to protect my investments?

William Modisakeng: Correct. The problem here is the research could take a minimum of 10 years and there are other issues of regulatory compliance - even before you begin with your research there’s other issues regulatory compliance, having to get permits. For instance in South Africa one would have to get a bio-prospecting permit which itself could take up to five years to get - so once one gets the information it then becomes important to protect it by all means.

Stephan Lamprecht: From your point of view do you think there is enough appreciation from the powers that be either from the public side as well as from investor’s point of view of the fact that things take a bit longer than if I had to start up an internet business in my garage for example?

William Modisakeng: There is that appreciation - although I believe that there could be some improvements, for instance stricter time limits could be imposed on officials in government, and monitoring the system so that it’s a well-oiled machine that moves as speedily as possible. I think that it all lies also with the inventor or the applicant for the patent or any other kind of IP protection - to ensure that they protect and take all the necessary steps at the right times to protect their ideas.

Stephan Lamprecht: Donrich, from your point of view being an entrepreneur do you think the typical SME in South Africa has the ability to secure that kind of protection during this R&D phase?

Donrich Jordaan: I think even before we start speaking about protection - because protection is only after you’ve really been successful with your R&D - one must look at intellectual property right from the very beginning before the research during the conceptualisation phase. When you develop your business plan you must already look at what is the patent landscape? So already at that stage I think intellectual property rights are absolutely essential, and I think there must be far more of a focus to awareness to look at IP even while conceptualising the business plan.

Stephan Lamprecht: So what you’re saying is it’s not just the actual protection but in terms of doing those audits and looking at the landscape - who is doing what, and so forth - and that is an integral part also in my design of the R&D phase…

Donrich Jordaan: Absolutely. To come then to your question of are biotech SMEs in South Africa really looking at that, or looking at that enough? That’s difficult to answer - but perhaps I must rather look at the kind of funding that is available for that, because before you even have a business plan - while you’re still in the conceptualisation phase - who will fund that? I think it’s unrealistic to think that an SME will be able to fund that itself…

Stephan Lamprecht: Especially if it’s 10 years before I start getting money with which to pay for an office…

Donrich Jordaan: Yes. What we see overseas is that there are systems in place of so-called pre-seed funding that’s being given by the state and public funding instruments to biotech SMEs to do this pre-R&D work - to research the business plan, to do research regarding the patent landscape - and that is absolutely essential…

Stephan Lamprecht: William, something that you mentioned in terms of bio-prospecting - in terms of what’s happening in South Africa there’s the Department of Trade & Industry and Department of Science & Technology - what other kinds of legal developments are there outside of the normal IP domain that impacts on my IP management practices?

William Modisakeng: I will stick to IP and legal development within that field as I’m not an expert in other fields, but we’ve seen a lot of new Bills that are coming across - we now have the TIA Bill that will also affect the biotech industry…

Stephan Lamprecht: That’s the Technology Innovation Agency Bill that talks about this new instrument for funding...

William Modisakeng: Yes, it will not only affect biotechnology per se - it will also affect other fields of innovation. We’ve also seen now there’s the Traditional Knowledge Bill that in a way will affect biotechnology - because it speaks to things like geographical indicators and things like that, and those will finally affect a biotech entrepreneur who wants to secure maybe a trademark name and things like that, that’s not necessarily directly linked to research. But there are other things - as you rightfully said now we have the Patent Amendment Bill that’s complementary to the Biodiversity Act speaking of protection of indigenous knowledge and indigenous biological resources.

Donrich Jordaan: If I could just add to what William has been saying - I think the barriers to entry for a biotech entrepreneur are definitely a lot higher than for instance IT. If you start an IT company you basically need a computer and internet access - but to start a biotech company you need a laboratory with equipment worth millions, and then also you have to do a lot of research in intellectual property and regulatory compliance with all of these regulations and Bills that are applicable. So it is definitely from the start a very challenging environment - but of course not without its opportunities and possible rewards. That is one of the reasons if I can just quickly say why Bio SA was established in 2007 as an organisation of South African biotech SMEs to help each other and especially to help new entrepreneurs navigate their way through this sea of regulatory obstacles, etc.