Scottish Enterprise lights the way to commercial success
New licensing deal plus four new Proof of Concept Programme awards
A licensing deal has been signed between Scottish Enterprise and Design LED Products Ltd to commercialise groundbreaking technology that will help the company target the rapidly expanding Lighting, LCD TV back-lighting and display market.
The new technology significantly improves energy efficiency, form factor and total cost of ownership on a wide range of LED lighting and display panels.
The technology was developed under Scottish Enterprise’s Backlighting with Polymer Optics R&D commercialisation programme. The programme was originally commissioned as part of the Intermediary Technology Institutes (ITIs), and was integrated into Scottish Enterprise’s commercialisation activities last year.
The licence will enable Design LED to accelerate its high growth plan with projected annual sales revenue forecast to exceed £20 million within 5 years.
Based in Livingston, the company will bring to market new technology that can be used in a variety of applications including consumer and professional LED lighting, LED LCD TV back-lighting, with the company already having secured significant market engagement.
The global market for LED lighting solutions alone is estimated at over Euro 95 Billion by 2014, with 216 million LCD TV back-light units also forecast to ship in that same year. Design LED is extremely well positioned to capitalise on both of these large and rapidly growing market sectors.
Stuart Bain, CEO of Design LED, comments, “Design LED is absolutely delighted with the outcome of this programme which builds on our core background intellectual property. The output allows us to move forward at real pace and to take significant share of a high growth market driven by government and environmental legislation and where we have significant competitive advantage.“
Dr Eleanor Mitchell, director of Commercialisation at Scottish Enterprise, says, “By signing licensing deals with private sector companies we’re ensuring that the technology developed in Scotland benefits the Scottish economy.
“Design LED is a great example of how a company can build on its existing intellectual property to generate innovative technology as a result of our large scale R&D programmes. By developing new products based on this combined technology, Design LED can realise its ambitions of securing new customers, new markets and new growth opportunities internationally. It’s these high growth companies we want to create more of to grow Scotland’s economy. ”
At the other end of the scale of Scottish Enterprise’s commercialisation efforts, four new awards have been made through its Proof of Concept Programme (PoCP). The Programme is designed to improve the level and quality of commercialisation within Scotland’s universities, research institutes and NHS Boards, helping to translate research ideas into spin-out companies, resulting in the creation of more high growth companies in Scotland.
The projects supported by PoCP are expected to result in a spin-out company or further licensing opportunities, creating similar business and economic benefits to the licensing deal between Scottish Enterprise and DesignLED. Spinouts with the potential for high growth are also given intensive support from Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Start Up unit.
Four new projects are being supported by PoCP, with details as follows:
- Novel Platform for Clinical Diagnostics and Bio Analysis (University of Glasgow) for the life sciences sector - this project develops technology that can create low cost devices that can be used at patients’ bedsides to process samples using electronic chips. This technology can then be used for the rapid and full detection of tuberculosis in humans and animals, with the worldwide market for point-of-care devices predicted to exceed £13 billion by 2014, with £1.9 billion driven by chip-based devices.
- Biodegradable Scaffolds for Functional Bone Repair (University of Edinburgh) for the life sciences sector - research into the development and creation of readily available biodegradable materials that can act as ‘scaffolds’ to assist in the healing process of bone fractures. With an ever-ageing population, and the current adverse weather conditions, there is increasing demand to develop new ways of replacing or repairing damaged bones.
- Intelligent Plastics for Food Packaging (University Strathclyde) for the food and drink sector – this project will develop low cost alternative packaging for foods, specifically seafood and red meats, which contain coloured pigments that indicate food spoilage. The integrated pigment in the packaging reduces cost by removing the need for expensive food spoilage indicator labels.
- Multifunctional Metal Organic Frameworks (University of St. Andrews) for the chemicals and life sciences sectors - this project develops technology for the development of antibacterial coatings for a range of uses including packaging, textiles, paints, flooring, coatings as well as healthcare applications such as medical devices and surgical instruments. The anti-bacterial market is estimated to be worth $25 billion in 2010, with the market for polyurethane products in the US alone being $7.5 billion in 2009.
Created in 1999, PoCP has invested a total of £41 million in 212 ground-breaking projects, supporting the development of new high growth technology businesses in Scotland. These projects have resulted in 52 new high-tech companies being formed and 60 licences being signed.
Dr Eleanor Mitchell, director of commercialisation, Scottish Enterprise, added: “Through our commercialisation support we are proactively bridging the gap between industry demand and world-class research. Through the Proof of Concept Programme and our large scale R&D programmes, we’re continuing to focus on opportunities to build real, commercially viable spin-out companies and commercial licences from ground-breaking innovative research ideas. And in doing so, we are helping Scotland compete at the highest possible level, boosting its long-term economic recovery.”
A recent spin-out example is Inquisitive Systems – read the full case study here.
For more information on Scottish Enterprise’s Proof of Concept Programme please visit: http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/proofofconcept
University | Industry Sector | Project | Media contact |
University of Edinburgh | Life Sciences | The creation of biodegradable materials to act as ‘scaffolds’ to assist in the healing of bone fractures. | Catriona Kelly |
University of Strathclyde | Food and Drink | The development of low cost alternative packaging for foods. | Paul Gallagher |
University of St. Andrews | Chemical | The development of technology for the creation of anti-bacterial coatings. | Gayle Cooke |
University of Glasgow | Life Sciences | The development of technology to create low cost devices that can be used at patients’ bedsides to process samples using electronic chips. | Ray McHugh |
Scientific abstracts
Biodegradable Scaffolds
Given the demographic challenge of an ageing population, the development of strategies to augment bone formation to replace or restore the function of traumatised, diseased or degenerated bone is a major clinical and socio-economic need.
However a crucial issue in achieving this goal is in the development of suitable scaffolds that allow cell binding and growth to form the desired selected tissues. This is achievable through the discovery of a range of readily-available, biocompatible and biodegradable materials, which have been demonstrated to be able to act as repair agents in bone fracture models. The discovery will allow this proof of concept proposal, to deliver, a range of totally unique biocompatible scaffolds to replace current rival approaches in the area of bone repair. The proposed project will ultimately lead to the formation of a high value company, based in Scotland.
Intelligent Plastics
Food packaging is a major global industry, a significant proportion of which is dedicated to modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), in which the atmosphere inside the food package is altered from air to an environment that minimises the growth of food spoilage microorganisms allowing food to stay fresh for longer.
Indicators for food package integrity and spoilage are increasingly common across the supply chain, i.e. packager, wholesaler, retailer and end user. Such indicators are typically labels stuck inside a package at a small, but measurable cost.
This project aims to obviate this cost by incorporating a new type of indicator into the plastic materials that make up the package. This project will create a series of useful, novel intelligent plastics for the packaging industry, with a direct and positive impact on the Scottish meat and seafood industries.
Multifunctional MoFs
Metal organic framework (MOF) materials are some of the most important recent scientific developments. They are extremely porous solids with potential applications across a wide range of technologies – from H2 storage for energy, CO2 capture, separations etc.
The aim of this project is to develop MOFs as a platform technology that can be applied in many different products in the chemicals and life science market areas. The products will take advantage of their low cost of manufacture and the ease with which MOFs can be tailored to produce multi-functionality. We propose to undertake a project that will deliver MOFs for application in several suitable formulations of interest to customers in several different areas. The project will also produce a strong business case through delivery of commercial objectives, in preparation for the formation of a spin out based in Scotland.
Novel Platforms
The market for point-of-care devices is predicted to exceed $20bn by 2014 with $3bn driven by chip-based devices. However, despite the range of platforms the growth/market penetration has been lower than expected. One key limitation has been the intractable need to perform analyses in complex samples (such as blood or sputum). This generally requires sample preparation steps that remove many of the chip-based advantages and drive up the cost of manufacture and subsequent test.
This project will demonstrate a new highly flexible microfluidic platform that utilises a truly “disruptive” technology to deliver low cost point-of-care devices with sample processing on chip. This platform will be applied to a significant market opportunity and a major diagnostics challenge, namely rapid and fully comprehensive detection of Tuberculosis (TB) in humans and animals.