IB Woman
Issue No. 24 - August/September 2005
Commercialising dreams
Rachel Marin
by Penelope Herbert
When Rachel Marin did a double degree in Law and Science, she was one of the very first at Flinders University to do so. But she knew exactly what she was doing and where she was heading. With a lifetime love of things scientific, Rachel figured legal qualifications would augment her scientific qualifications and provide a strong base for an interesting career.
And she was right. Rachel is responsible for the commercialisation of world class scientific research at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre.
She works closely with scientists to understand their research and then identify, protect, develop and exploit the intellectual property through licensing, assignments or the creation of new companies as appropriate for commercialisation.
“Each technology undergoes a detailed assessment examining the scientific, patent and legal aspects of the technology and its commercial potential. Consequently, an individual commercialisation strategy is developed,” she says.
Critical to the process, is determining where the additional funding for the development of the technology will come from.
“From the outset, we put together a financial plan detailing how we will source the funds for the development work which is required to take the technology from the R&D stage through to a prototype,” Rachel explains.
“Government grants are extremely important in the early stages. However, we also plan for angel and venture capital investment and in some cases an IPO.”
In the commercialisation of biotechnology, Rachel’s background of science and law is the perfect fit.
She has just returned from Philadelphia where she attended Bio 2005. With 18,000 delegates, this is the largest biotechnology conference in the world. Rachel was there to learn, network and present three South Australian companies set up from the results of research undertaken by Flinders Medical Centre and The Queen Elizabeth Hospita...
