Commercialization Phase Brings New Challenges To Nanotech Industry

Increased industry/government collaboration is needed in the field of nanotechnology to move from the research & development phase to the comercialization phase, speakers told the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) during a June 25 meeting in Arlington, Va.

The nanotechnology sector at large is facing the challenges of translating recent scientific discoveries into specific product applications, said Michael Holman, a senior analyst for the independent research and advisory firm Lux Research.

"It is not directly the government's responsibility to handle the commercialization of new technologies, but there's always a lot of things the government can do to create an environment that's more conducive to commercialization," Holman said.

"I think some of the issues ... around environmental safety issues and intellectual property definitely fall into that category," he said.

Holman and several other industry representatives attended the meeting to provide PCAST with comments and feedback as the council prepares to submit its second report on the state of nanotechnology in the U.S.

PCAST also serves as the National Nanotechnology Advisory Panel, charged with providing biannual reports on the interagency R&D funding initiative known as the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The panel submitted its first report to President Bush in 2005.

While the 2005 report emphasized the value of nanotechnology as a scientific investment, the council's discussion indicated that the second report will focus on the state of nanotechnology research around the world and what is needed for the U.S. to maintain its leading position in the research.

Nanotechnology is a growing industry in many fields. According to Holman, $50 billion worth of products sold in 2006 incorporated some form of nanotechnology.

The technology's proliferation has been highly visible in the cosmetics marketplace where nanoparticles are employed, for instance, as delivery mechanisms for active ingredients.

Firms looking to market nano-based products face a number of challenges. Developing nanoparticles is just the first stage of product development, Holman said; the particles cannot simply be added to any product the company wishes, but must be "fine tuned" to match the product formulation.

Holman referred industry to the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., which provides opportunities for small businesses to work with "all the very talented scientists and all the very impressive equipment they have there at that facility in order to be able to accelerate the progress of the commercial application."

"I think that the program the DOE has put together has been a very good one, and one that's been well-received by industry," Holman said.

"In general what programs like the Oak Ridge one have done - and I think NNI is doing - is providing for those people in academia who are interested in collaborating with industry," he added.

"It can provide some of the funding that promotes that and it allows people who are interested in those types of collaborations to be supported."

William Moffit of the firm Nanosphere noted that universities often are interested in collaborating with industry because they enjoy "making sure that the work they do has some relevance."

While there was general consensus among the speakers that the government need not assume a primary role in the commercialization process, Jim von Ehr, CEO of Zyvex Instruments, suggested that the government can help by reducing uncertainties.

Although the private sector has plenty of money and can easily "pick the winners from the losers" in terms of what can be commercialized, "the biggest issue they have is risk," von Ehr asserted. "And risk is usually in the form of uncertainty."

"Regulations and the regulatory environment breed uncertainty that creates risk ... and if you think about scaling up and commercializing, the burn-rate goes up tenfold," he said.

For instance, it is risky to develop a new product that employs nanotechnology when there are so many unknowns about the type of approval process that will be required for it, he said. This is an area where government can help reduce uncertainty.

A recent report by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars emphasized the need for structured regulatory oversight of nanotechnology (¹ 'The Rose Sheet' May 28, 2007, In Brief).

In addition to an environment that is conducive to commercialization, speakers called for examination of the current patent process with an eye toward possible reforms.

Holman said that obtaining approval for a nanotech patent from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office can take up to four years - almost twice the length of time needed for all other patents.

Speakers also expressed frustration with their inability to hire qualified workers from other countries due to obstacles involved in obtaining visas.

They noted that many international students who come to the U.S. to receive degrees in technology must leave upon graduation, taking their skills with them and enhancing their country's potential to compete.

"I recently opened a company in Singapore earlier this year where I can get people very easily. ... I could not get those very smart and talented people a visa to actually work for my company here," Moffit said.

"Getting a visa for someone is a process involving thousands of dollars and years of paperwork."

Much of the meeting focused on the types of research strategies that should be recommended in the next report, with PCAST members asking whether a basic research or applied research strategy should be advocated.

Speakers responded that the two are not mutually exclusive.

"You can have support for basic research that is still organized around some of these broader themes like energy and medicine," Holman said.

He noted that the National Institutes of Health supports a basic research strategy that focuses on medicine and human health.

"So I don't think that having some of these key themes and focusing some research dollars toward them is necessarily incompatible with the government's basic mission of support of basic research," Holman said.

Lubab Sheet, of the industry association SEMI, agreed. "Whether it's basic research or application research, I think those programs need to be coupled with industry so that the money that is spent is directed and focused."

"So I guess I'm agreeing that we need to select key areas and focus on those. ... and certainly I would encourage manufacturing technology to be one of those areas."

Finally, the panel addressed the issue of health and environmental safety concerns - such as the potential for nanotechnology particles to be toxic - and what should be done to address that issue.

Andrew Maynard, chief science advisor for the Woodrow Wilson Center Project on Emerging Nanotechnology, advocated a specific research plan to address risk-related questions.

"For eight to 10 years now we've had a pretty good idea of the questions we've got to address in broad terms. ... The next step is going to be to start answering these questions rather than just talking about them," he said.

"You've got to have some sort of overarching strategy that says, 'These are the questions that industry needs to answer now or in the next 12 months, 24 months, five years, if they're going to succeed. This is how much it's going to cost. These are the organizations that we think are going to be involved.'"

"If you've got a specific set of questions you want to answer, just assuming or hoping that someone is going to come up with the answers to those is not good research policy," Maynard concluded.

- Bridget Behling