Dr. Graham Love:

I would like to come back partly about what I have heard here, but comment more in terms of systems because that is our main responsibility. I am concerned that there might be a perception on the part of some that there is something wrong with individual researchers benefiting. It is written into the national policy and international policies that researchers should be incentivised to gain from intellectual property they develop. The second thing I would like to say and, again, I stress that I am talking at the entire higher education system level, is that it is not unusual for the stake of an institution one of whose researchers develops intellectual property in which the institution takes a stake to be significantly diluted down during the process of maturing the product or service that is ultimately sold. I said this last week. I will give an international example to help the committee. University College London, UCL, a serious institution of high repute that is very good at research and spinning out and commercialising research, spun out a company called Biovex a number of years ago. This involved immunotherapies for cancer - initially melanoma. There were several rounds of investment. UCL initially had a 20% stake so it was even higher than some of the things we discussed here today but, again, this is not unusual. This stake got diluted through the various rounds of investment. Eventually, that company was bought by Amgen, an international biotechnology company, for €1 billion in 2014. I do not know UCL's actual percentage stake by that stage but it was 0.00 something. The institution and the researcher got thousands of dollars out of the figure of €1 billion. I am using this example to make the case that it is not unusual for that to happen. What is really important is that UCL's reputation as a place of great science and technology that attracts industries, capital and big companies looking to hire people was significantly enhanced. UCL uses it as a case study.