IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON
COVER STORY LARGE SCALE Researchers at
the U.K.’s MRC-NIHR National Phenome Centre conduct population-level phenotypic analyses using equipment from Bruker and Waters Corp.
CUSTOMER RELATIONS Instrumentation firms are increasingly FORGING LINKS WITH SCIENTISTS in academic and nonprofit labs to tap into key research areas and develop new technology ANN M. THAYER, C&EN HOUSTON
INSTRUMENT COMPANIES have many
reasons to hunt for customers with deeper pockets than scientists in academic and nonprofit institutions. University, government, and other nonprofit laboratories make up less than one-quarter of sales for the industry. Perennially cash-strapped nonprofits are fighting for a shrinking pool of funding owing to cuts in government spending. In general, they buy instruments only every three to five years. But academic customers offer benefits that better-funded industrial customers often don’t bring. One of them, according to Mark Cafazzo, senior market manager for the academic market at instrument maker AB Sciex, is a willingness to collaborate. “We regularly poll our customers and have found that they don’t necessarily want a flat transactional relationship with their vendors,” Cafazzo says, “but really want to work regularly with us for mutual benefit.” Working with top scientists at academic
institutions is also a way for instrument companies to tap into cutting-edge research. Successful partnerships can pinpoint scientific questions and invent new equipment to help provide answers. Instrument firms and academic scientists alike have warmed to the idea that collaborations, if structured well, will let them achieve their respective business and research goals without making major compromises. As a result, some long-standing industry-academic relationships are deepening into large-scale alliances. Constant contact with academic collaborators helps firms develop products and validate technology. Not only are R&D leaders sounding boards for vetting new instruments, they are also training the next generation of scientists who may become customers. From these collaborators, companies get clues about what to invent, where to improve, and how research is evolving. For their part, academic researchers CEN.ACS.ORG
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frequently get early access to, or even help build, the newest technology to advance their scientific aims. In return for access, researchers may help develop methods and protocols for new equipment that a company can offer to other customers. Both sides have an interest in publishable results in which an instrument played a critical role. Over the past several years, relationships between universities and industry have grown in number, size, and complexity. In fact, some people concerned about preserving academic freedom worry that scientists can get swept up in the tide and lose some independence. But a look at how three major instrument firms approach academic collaborations in general—and three marquee alliances in particular—suggests all parties can come out ahead if alliances are done right. Separations and mass spectrometry firm Waters Corp. helps fund innovative research projects through its University
Research Collaboration Program. Researchers may use the award to reduce the price of a Waters system. In return, the researchers agree to be available as expert references regarding the suitability of Waters’s products for addressing their research challenges. Waters has worked with academia for more than 50 years, according to Scientific Director John C. Gebler. These interactions range from active collaborations that involve set milestones and the exchange of money or equipment to more passive relationships with informal communications. Either way, “we are very open about publication,” Gebler says.
exploratory profiling and targeted analysis and three Bruker 600-MHz nuclear magnetic resonance machines. Many of the 16 researchers now in the center “have been developing NMR- and MS-based platforms for biomarker discovery and analysis for at least 25 years,” Nicholson says. Because much of that work involved equipment from Bruker and Wa-
ters, “they were natural partners for the National Phenome Centre,” he adds. Nevertheless, the instrumentation companies still had to pass muster. Nicholson notes that a proposal for the center was peer-reviewed and evaluated at high government levels. “We had to make a case for the scientific background and the benefits of what we are going to do and the business
MOST OF THE WORK, he notes, focuses
on demonstration and application of technology, which generally does not create patentable results. But advances do emerge. “Many of the technologies that we have today, like ion-mobility spectroscopy, hydrogen-deuterium exchange MS, and ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC), came from significant collaborative relationships,” Gebler explains. “We look to work in areas that we are interested in but that are new to us and where we don’t have the expertise in-house, or where there’s an opportunity to have additional market penetration.” Waters also recognizes leading investigators through its Centers of Innovation Program. Launched in late 2010, the program has selected more than 20 scientists, labs, and research centers across a variety of fields. It provides them access to Waters’s scientists and technology, but it’s not a guarantee of funding or equipment and does not require researchers to purchase or use only Waters equipment. Among the first recognized in the program was Jeremy K. Nicholson, a biochemist who heads the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London. He also directs the six-month-old MRC-NIHR National Phenome Centre, which conducts population-level phenotyping to uncover disease risk factors. Set up with the help of $16 million from the U.K.’s Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health Research, the center is a partnership among Imperial, King’s College London, Waters, and instrumentation firm Bruker. Some of the fledgling center’s equipment was repurposed from the 2012 Olympic antidoping facility (C&EN, Sept. 3, 2012, page 40), but much of it is new, Nicholson says. The phenome center houses 16 Waters UPLC triple-quadrupole MS systems for
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sustainability of the model,” he says. Representatives from Waters and Bruker serve on an analytical development committee, and the firms provide engineering and technical support, but the center is free to set its own agenda. Under MRC policy, the center leases the equipment under a long-term agreement that provides for upgrades. At the same time, under an agreement with the instrument firms, “we have defined areas that we will work in and particular deliverables,” Nicholson says.
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than just ways for an institution to get the best deal on expensive equipment. Choosing the right partner is critical to achieving a close interaction and to using technology in innovative ways, Nicholson says. “For every sample, we have nine exploratory procedures,” he tomers through the pheNEW DIGS University of explains. “We are challenging the nome center. Support from California, Berkeley, Waters and Bruker includes systems with different sorts of students work in samples and also trying to make donations of equipment for a new analytical them high-throughput.” To increase instrumentation lab a training center for internaequipped by Agilent tional students, scientists, productivity, center scientists push Technologies. the equipment “until the rivets pop and doctors. “There is a lot out,” he says. of opportunity where our Doing so is a way to identify weak technologies might be very links in a scientific system. “We have a valuable to a customer, but they don’t know very interactive program of instrument how to use them,” Gebler says. modification and enhancement to actually Better training and education are goals make the whole thing more fit for the ultiof another company-supported project: the mate purpose of large-scale phenotyping,” Chemical Science Laboratories for the 21st Nicholson says. “We are establishing what Century at the University of California, we consider to be extremely robust profilBerkeley. As part of the $30 million undering and targeted methods that you can taking, former College of Chemistry dean export anywhere if you have similar sorts Richard A. Mathies wanted to update UC of equipment.” Berkeley’s chemistry curriculum and bring Nicholson says he believes instrument in modern equipment. Agilent Technolocompanies and their employees have a gies helped with a deal that enabled the colgenuine desire to see their technology aflege to equip a new student lab with about fect people’s lives. Not only is this “a very $1 million worth of analytical instruments good place to be in ethically,” he says, but for about half the cost, Mathies says. by generating deliverable results in a new Agilent and UC Berkeley had connecfield, they may be able to create a market tions long before the chemistry project. In where one didn’t exist. early 2011, the firm made a multi-millionIndeed, equipment suppliers have the dollar commitment that included access to opportunity to reach potential new custechnology and company scientists to help
“Once you get onto a particular gravy train, there will always be a date ... when the decision arises whether to renew.” CEN.ACS.ORG
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COVER STORY
UC Berkeley set up its Synthetic Biology Institute. Because the school and the company knew and trusted each other, “everyone was pulling the wagon in the same direction to try to get to a deal that made sense, where you get a great facility at a price point that you can handle,” Mathies says about the student lab. The connection with Agilent is “yet another example of how private industry can very appropriately work with public universities and make chemistry better,” he says. Although the proposal went through the usual university purchasing process, he says other suppliers were unlikely to match the significant discounts, grants, and donations Agilent offered.
ciation of how advanced research requires and enables new measurement solutions.” In this way, academic collaborations, especially those involving basic research, complement Agilent’s internal R&D, which tends to be more proprietary and product-focused. “A very important part of our basic research program is accomplished through our work with universities,” Wenstrand says.
Still, companies aren’t the only ones taking the initiative to create partnerships. As part of the Xtreme Everest 2 Expedition this past spring, University of Cambridge researchers were going to analyze metabolic samples acquired at high altitudes using AB Sciex equipment already in their labs. Needing additional support, they reached out to a former university colleague,
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issue in the institute’s work with AB Sciex. Indeed, AB Sciex gets nu“We develop the technology hand in hand merous proposals every year research labs, most rank consumables as their top with AB Sciex to solve the problems,” he from scientists looking for purchasing priority. says. “But we don’t work on the mass specinstrumentation or R&D suptrometry—that’s what AB Sciex does. We port. Although the company work on methods and data interpretation evaluates them carefully, “we Consumables and on being a public repository.” are a business, not a granting Equipment His research group transfers its methbody, and we can’t fund evSoftware & information ods and data analysis directly to ISB’s Proerything,” Cafazzo explains. technology teomics Core facility. Open to ISB faculty, “We seek to partner with Purchasing priority rank Overhead & supplies staff, and outside collaborators, the feepeople who are really expand◼ First for-service facility is a “best test for wider ing the way MS is used and 0 ◼ Second Other public consumption,” Moritz says. The are positive advocates for us 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 facility houses more than 20 MS systems in terms of their publications Respondents, % from different suppliers. “We work curand the conferences at which rently on AB Sciex systems, but there is no they like to speak.” NOTE: Survey respondents are labs in the U.S., U.K., Germany, reason why this could not be translated to AB Sciex looks for key and Japan and were asked, “What are your two highest purchasing priorities for your lab?” other platforms as well,” he suggests. opinion leaders as well as SOURCE: Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research Instrument suppliers say their relation“rising stars” through its twoships are not exclusive and that they comyear-old Academic Partnerpete for researchers’ attention through the now an AB Sciex scientist, Cafazzo says. ship Program. Grants to young investigaperformance and quality of their products. “Our relationship went from strictly ventors in the U.S. and Canada may include a “It is a very fluid environment, and we are dor and customer to our being a sponsor for partially or fully funded equipment system. always hoping to catch the ear of someone a certain portion of their work,” he recalls. Cafazzo says AB Sciex built the program who we consider to be a key opinion leader,” “We expect some really nice applications to bring it closer to customers who buy innotes and publications to come out of that struments infrequently. work on these irreplaceable samples.” The firm also has long-term acaFUNDING SOURCES A survey of 63 demic collaborators who have been academic and nonprofit labs worldwide shows important to its technology developthat most funding comes from governments. ment, such as Ruedi Aebersold, a professor in the Institute of Molecular Pharma & Other Systems Biology at the Swiss Federal biotech firms 4% 12% Institute of Technology, Zurich, also known as ETH Zurich. Aebersold Charity & private helped develop SWATH Acquisition, foundations an MS technique that can quantify 13% nearly all detectable peptides and Ultra-long chain linear alcohols University proteins in a sample from a single Government endowment Custom hydroxyl-terminated grants analysis. & institutional polybutadienes for:
MONEY SPENT In a survey of 48 academic
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Sciex formed a partnership with NOTE: Labs in the U.S. and Europe account for 80% of survey respondents, and labs in Asia and Central and South the Institute for Systems Biology, a America account for 20%. SOURCE: Mizuho Securities USA Seattle-based nonprofit headed by Leroy Hood. In February, ISB and AB Sciex signed a three-year agreement AB Sciex’s Cafazzo says. Working with scito collaborate on developing MS methods entists who use multiple instrument brands and technology in proteomics, applying can actually yield valuable comparisons. SWATH to build biomarker libraries. Making an academic collaboration sucISB scientists have known people at AB ceed requires more than just intellectual Sciex for many years, says Robert L. Moritz, alignment, company managers say. It’s ISB’s research director for proteomics. important to understand each other’s “We have had very much aligned thoughts capabilities and communicate well. For about advancing proteomics. The latest example, Waters’s Gebler says, “Academics partnership was more formalized because are not held to the same time constraints it was much larger.” ISB uses AB Sciex and pressures that we are in industry, and instruments, and the two sides exchange so one has to go in recognizing that a fruitpeople and expertise. ful collaboration is going to take time.” Although ISB’s charter calls for openAt Agilent, the technical staff of both source research, Moritz says this isn’t an its Agilent Research Laboratories and its CEN.ACS.ORG
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“Many of the technologies that we have today ... came from significant collaborative relationships.” product lines can propose academic partnerships. “Virtually everything we do with universities involves a committed Agilent sponsor who cares about the specific work to be done and has detailed expertise in the area,” Wenstrand says. Each engagement must advance the interests of the university researcher and, through the participation of the Agilent scientist, provide opportunities for the company to contribute and learn.
that is unblemished, whose objectivity and disinterested character they can stake their business on, and they want a university that renders independent judgment on
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for academic researchers to pursue their research without interference. “We want them to draw the conclusions they hope to reach out of their work, and we support them in every way we can,” Cafazzo says. “The best experimental design is to accomplish what they are trying to do and show the power of the technology at the same time.” Watching out for the interests of academic researchers in their dealings with the corporate world are groups such as the American Association of University Professors, which will soon publish principles to guide industry-academia relationships. The principles are not intended to discourage relationships with industry, says Cary Nelson, an English professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and former AAUP president. “It is to manage them so that they’ll survive public scrutiny, preserve the integrity of academic research, and serve at least those industries that really want honest research.” Principles that relate to equipment purchases, for example, address conflicts of interest, decision-making authority, and the need to evaluate multiple vendors, Nelson explains. He warns against relationships that are exclusive, involve confidential work and prevent publication, or allow companies to set research or educational agendas. Once industry support has been established, academic enterprises can become reliant on it to pay the bills, Nelson cautions. “The problem is, once you get onto a particular gravy train, there will always be a date— whether it is next year or three years down the line—when the decision arises whether to renew,” he explains. Knowingly or not, researchers can find themselves serving corporate needs to keep relationships going. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Most companies, Nelson says, want “research
their products. And that’s a good industryacademy relationship because it benefits the public, it benefits the academy, and it benefits the industry.” ◾
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