Building upon our initial ideation workshop, Nicholas Duggan, a partner at Viadynamics, spoke about how to select an appropriate business model at this week’s Science to Start-up (S2S) workshop.

Consideration of numerous processes and questions are required before settling on an adequate business model for your start-up: to reach your desired customers, do you have the appropriate routes to market? What tools, knowledge and skills do you need to scale your idea? Where and how do you provide value, at what cost and price point? By considering questions like these, you are then able to select which options you have as a business model e.g. subscription service, selling equipment etc.

By understanding a currently unmet need and the barriers to the solution, our start-ups should now have a business model that they would like to build upon. The next step is to know how to protect their intellectual property and to acquire finance to support the progression of their business. Luckily, we have Joseph Lenthall and Dominic O’Regan on hand to enlighten us.

Dr. Joe Lenthall is a Partner and patent attorney in the Chemistry and Life Sciences team at Haseltine Lake Kempner, a specialist IP firm. He specialises in obtaining and managing patent portfolios in the healthcare and chemical industries. He has developed substantial technical and professional experience in the fields of new pharmaceutical entities (including protein kinase inhibitors, ADCs and PROTACs) for a variety of therapeutic areas, radiopharmaceuticals, new pharmaceutical formulations (including oral protein formulations), dentistry, biocompatible materials, assay devices and consumer product formulations.

Joe particularly enjoys working with start-up companies where IP can be a highly valuable company asset. He has worked with companies from start-up to acquisition, working collaboratively with those companies to ensure their IP strategy is always aligned with the overall company strategy. Joe is also dedicated to sharing his knowledge and experience with the entrepreneurial community by mentoring teams in business plan competitions such as the Imagine IF accelerator and TERMIS business plan competition. Joe also regularly guest lectures at UK universities on the role of IP in the commercialisation of research.

Dominic O’Regan, through his company New Mosaic Ltd, works to help seed stage companies in the UK and Europe obtain investment and to commercialise towards exit or market.  This work is typically very collaborative, with close working relationships with the companies and others in his network to ensure the pitch, data room and more importantly, the thinking behind them, are ready for investment and the market.  He also makes personal angel investments in UK companies.

Dominic has 25 years’ experience working with pharmaceutical, biotech, scientific instrument and other life science business.  He has held positions in marketing, business insights, product and project development, and process streamlining, has worked with over 15 pharmaceutical and biotech companies of all sizes, and has experience in over 20 secondary care therapy areas.

What is S2S?

Innovation Forum UCL and UCL Innovation & Enterprise’s S2S is a free “Science to Start-up” workshop series and a fundamental programme for those interested in how to establish a start-up in today’s fast-paced and competitive market. These interactive workshops are led by sector specialists and shall introduce concepts essential for understanding and considering when developing your start-up.

From the first workshop, you’ll develop your idea and refine it with the new information that you will have gleaned at each workshop. At the final session, you will pitch your idea (whether it’s hypothetical or a true start-up) to our judges for a chance to win a £200 prize. You can also attend this series for your own education/ knowledge with no expectation that you form your own real/ hypothetical start-up.

What will be covered during S2S 2019?

This year’s workshop series will run over 5 consecutive weeks (Tuesday 8^th October to 5^th November 2019) and will cover: idea generation, business model, intellectual property, finance, marketing and business development and pitching.

Each workshop is split into an interactive lecture by our sector specialists followed by Q&A and networking to enhance your own knowledge and develop your evolving start-up. So, come along and hear from the very best about start-up creation and network over food and drinks. It’s all on us!

How do I sign up?

Our first session started last week, but we welcome those interested in innovation and enterprise. Any start-ups formed from this week onwards will, unfortunately, be ineligible for the £200 cash prize at the final pitching session. For more information, timetable and registration, click on our Eventbrite. Feel free to contact Innovation Forum UCL with any queries on [email protected] 

See you on Tuesday 22^nd October, 18:00 at W3.07, IOE UCL.

Article written by Bethan Davies.