I'm sort of embarrassed that I've never heard of
It's been going for over five years, started in the US by a couple of Kiwi founders, and hasgrown well beyond start up to having recently secured Series B funding of US$25 million.
In its own words “Science Exchange has become the world’s leadingmarketplace for scientific research. Through Science Exchange, researchers can securely access anetwork of 1,000s of screened and verified contract research organizations (CROs), academic labs,and government facilities that are available to conduct scientific experiments.”
Science Exchange not only validates the science providers credentials, it takes care of thepaperwork, payment and IP, including dealing across international borders.
It has obviously solved a problem.
And now it has established its first satellite office – in New Zealand, operating out of the
But New Zealand will be a good test of how SciEx can go about growing – while being ideallylocated (timezone-wise) between west coat America and Asia.
Along with Matiu Andrew-Cookson, who has an interesting background as a biochemist along withstructural planning expertise, SciEx (NZ branch) is looking to show science researchers andfacilities here how they can much more easily provide their in-demand expertise to the world.
It should be something that is welcomed with open arms by everyone.
We have expertise, at times under-utilised capacity, specialised knowledge in certain areas, andare reasonably trusted.
Other people are prepared to pay for these outputs – and usually quite handsomely. ScienceExchange's cut comes from the buyer of the research – added on top of the negotiated'doing-science' fee.
It doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility that some science providers could make someserious coin by being the outsourced component of someone else's needs.
There's already private companies such as
TrinityBioactives
who make biological products for overseas customers, and has been an accreditedScience Exchange research provider for a few months. Others such as the
The Crown Research Institutes and universities must also have spare capacity. It is quite easy toenvisage that such overseas derived contracts could help underwrite original NZ research.
But, there may be downsides that I haven't thought of.
Can anyone else think of how the presence of Science Exchange could be detrimental to NZ?
(There's completely different written material from Peter Kerr at):