Technology companies get resources for co-operation in R&D and are encouraged to share both risks and ideas, writes Robin O'Brien Lynch

For political institutions set up under the Belfast Agreement, the last few years have seen stuttering development, blighted by the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the slow nature of political discourse.

However, this has been offset by progress among cross-Border bodies in other sectors, such as Fáilte Ireland or InterTradeIreland. Away from the glare of public scrutiny, one of the latter's latest programmes is already reaping rich rewards halfway through its pilot stage.

Innova was set up by InterTradeIreland to foster links between technology firms on both sides of the Border and, most importantly, to fund and assist research and development (R&D) co-operation.

The aim of the project is to bring companies, particularly SMEs, into partnerships where they can share risks as well as ideas, and speed up the development of products into the marketplace.

Each partnership can contain up to six companies, with at least one from each side of the Border; and each company can apply for funding of up to €200,000.

"Obviously a larger multinational company would only get about 40 per cent of that sum," says Innova operations manager Margaret Hearty, "but the majority of the companies can access the whole amount".

The prohibitive costs and lengthy duration of R&D are always held up as a barrier to progress in the technology sector and Hearty believes the programme helps companies with a clear commercial strategy to proceed much quicker.

"We regularly hear calls for greater support of R&D, but rarely a method for how that should be done," says Hearty.

"What we are learning from the pilot phase of Innova is that we may have that model. A lot of the feedback we have been getting is that companies have the idea but not the resources and we can speed up the development process.

"All the applications have to have real commercial potential and they are assessed rigidly on that."

The pilot project, scheduled to last two years, has already expanded from its original remit. "The pilot was set up for firms working within the life and health sector with a view to commercial benefit but also to create a critical mass of resources in the sector," says Hearty.

"The first batch were in the biotech area. Now we are also looking to the food sector, medical instruments, and one that we hadn't anticipated such interest from - the ICT sector.

"We planned to fund between eight and 10 companies in the pilot and we currently have eight approved and two more in the pipeline.

Luxcel Biosciences is an early stage biotech company based in Cork. A spin-off company from UCC started in 2002, it now owns its facility on campus and provides ready-made employment opportunities for graduates.

"We took on our first PhD this year. It's a very symbiotic relationship we have with the college. UCC are minor shareholders in the company and it gives us access to some of the top young scientists in the country," says Dr Richard Fernandes, chief executive and co-founder of Luxcel.

In just three years, the company has been thrust into the international market. One of its projects is an early warning system for toxicity in therapeutics for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

"The test measures oxygen consumption so we can tell if cells are alive or dead by whether they are consuming oxygen or not. And if a new compound is killing healthy cells then it can be taken out of the development pipeline at a very early stage, saving the company millions."

As well as Pfizer, Luxcel have worked with most of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies.

Increased competition in the global market puts tremendous pressure on a company of Luxcel's size and working with Innova provides a platform to expand its operations at a lower risk.

"We are a very young company but we are leaders in our field," says Dr Fernandes. "We have opened up to the international market and the biggest barrier we face is the cost of R&D. It takes years to turn an idea into a product and it is prohibitively expensive. To get an idea of the challenges we face, Pfizer have an R&D budget of $7 billion (€5.7 billion).

Luxcel had already been in discussion with Jim Johnston, director of Fusion Antibodies in Belfast, before the involvement with Innova. The subsequent partnership has helped both companies target the global market and led to projected double-digit growth in turnover.

"They have the technology for identifying a range of cancers and we were able to work with them in creating a more sensitive detection process," says Dr Fernandes.

"Apart from the funding, we were also able to exchange R&D know-how, work on an intellectual property agreement, brainstorm on ideas, increase our level of networks, exchange personnel and gain greater access to facilities."

Companies that have also benefited from collaboration are Randox Laboratories in Co Antrim and Dublin-based Biotrin International, which are developing an automated test for pancreatitis. Working with Innova has allowed them to speed up development considerably, and they have projected sales for the product of €250,000 for the first year, rising to €1.3 million in year three, according to Dr Lorna Lawrence, business development manager at Randox,

"We manufacture reagents for analysis as well as the hardware and cartridges for the test. We have 25 international sales, and we deal with 130 countries so we have a huge global reach and a very good distribution network," she says.

"Biotrin is a smaller but equally fast-growing company based in Mount Merrion . It has developed a successful test for pancreatitis but it is a very time-consuming and laborious test, requiring expertise and manpower, so their distribution is limited by the format.

"What made the collaboration attractive to us is that they have the test and we have the expertise. We can develop automated tests with less labour input and less skills required by the operator. We had been talking to Biotrin about using a more automated platform and now with assistance of Innova and Enterprise Ireland we can get moving.

"We were committed to other projects and it would have taken at last two years to get off the ground but, with the extra funding, we could start at a much earlier stage. We're now about halfway through and without that assistance we wouldn't have even started at this stage."

As well as financial assistance, Innova provides a vehicle to collaborate with Biotrin. PricewaterhouseCoopers acts as managing agents for Innova and it helps the companies develop a costed commercial proposal.

"This project puts us in a unique position worldwide," says Dr Lawrence. "We will be licensed to sell the only automated test and it greatly raises the profile of both companies."

Margaret Hearty feels that there can sometimes be a mental block surrounding the Border, which deters companies from considering collaborations in the other jurisdiction. Innova helps overcome this.

"One company in Cork we deal with, EiRx therapeutics hadn't realised there was such a strong biotech sector in the North," she says. "As well as promoting cross-Border collaboration, the project adds to the ethos of InterTradeIreland. It allows companies to share knowledge . . . it is a unique initiative on this island and, as far as we know, in Europe."