🚀 Innovating Tomorrow: A Conversation with IP Expert Alla Darwish

From Discovery to Market, Alla shares insights on shaping the future of technology and commercialization.

I’m excited to bring you a conversation with Alla Darwish, a distinguished expert in IP management and commercialization with a rich background in the biotech sector. Alla has played a key role in numerous successful startups, including Fusion Pharmaceuticals, and has extensive experience in academia and supporting innovation at Conestoga College.

In this interview, Alla shares insights on the challenges of commercializing new technologies, effective IP strategies, and the future impact of AI on IP management. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a tech enthusiast, this is a must-read.

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1/ Alla, can you share how your diverse background has shaped your approach to IP management and commercialization?

I started my career as a scientist in the radiopharmaceutical sector working on novel therapeutics against cancer. As a scientist, I have a very curious mind and my approach to innovation back then was “what if you do this, what happens?”

One day, through this curiosity, and serendipitously, I stumbled on a discovery that launched Fusion Pharmaceuticals. Over the years, I became more involved with startups in the pharmaceutical sector, and then later joined academia in effort to commercialize IP created by their researchers.

Deep down I’m still that curious scientist. However, the questions I ask are different now. It is not “what if you do this, what happens?”, the questions I ask these days “Is there a market demand for this idea?” and “what does the freedom-to-operate look like?” My experience has taught me you have to start with the market first, then go backward. Unlike how I used to do it in the early days; innovate then try to find a market for the innovation.

My current process for innovation starts with defining what the market problem/opportunity is, then what solutions exist to address this problem, how does the proposed idea provide a significant improvement over the current solution? Once you are able to answer these questions clearly, and be able to define your value proposition, then you can start working on the IP strategy.

2/ In your opinion, what are the most common challenges faced in commercializing new technologies?

The common answer you will receive for this question is not enough funding from the government to commercialize new technologies. From my perspective, I do share that point of view, but I will break it down to you where I specifically see the issue or gap.

Commercializing new technologies face the same problem when you try a new recipe for cupcakes. You won’t know how good they are until other people try them. In technology terms, this is typically known as market validation; create a minimum viable product (MVP) and determine if there is a market-product-fit.

In my opinion, the market validation stage is the biggest challenge, which involves understanding your market via market research and creating the MVP. This stage is typically referred to as the “valley of death” in the commercialization continuum.

From a market research perspective, there is plenty of support from innovation hubs on how to identify your target market, and who would be the early adopters

From a technological perspective, there is definitely a funding gap in de-risking technologies to an MVP stage (TRL 6-7). This is taking a technology that has been partially validated, and creating a simplistic product for the purpose of market validation. In an academic setting, technology de-risking is typically funded by the highly competitive NSERC I2I program. Outside of academia, companies must bootstrap, personally fund, or look for government programs which are typically focused on specific sectors to fund their technology de-risking activities. From the investment side of the equation, investors typically look for technologies that are validated in a relevant environment (TRL 6-7). Reaching this validation stage is the hurdle in my opinion (the valley of death).

My advice is to create an environment where we can be nimble, create MVPs, identify early adopters and validate the market quickly. If the idea is going to fail, it needs to fail fast to allow for quick iteration. This is how we are going to compete against the world and stay at the forefront of innovation.

3/ From your experience, what are some effective strategies for entrepreneurs to leverage intellectual property?

IP rights provide a monopoly over a claimed subject matter in a particular jurisdiction, which typically have commercial value. From my time in academia, I have seen three main channels for leveraging IP to commercialize.

• Startup - Academic team launch their own business in effort to be the commercial lead on their technology.  This provides the flexibility and nimbleness a new venture needs to reach the market validation stage and pivot if needed.   However, startups are considered 3rd parties to academic institutes, and when the IP leave academia to a 3rd party, it no longer qualifies for some of the grants (eg. NSERC I2I) or the support from the tech transfer office.  Startups are a great strategy to commercialize IP if your company is a SaaS which typically needs less CAPEX and can generate revenue in a relatively short amount of time.  For hardware or life science based technologies, I advise to keep the technology in academia as long as you can to further maturity of the technology (close to TRL 5-6) before transferring the IP ownership to the startup. These types of companies (hardware and life science) typically require bigger upfront investments than SaaS companies.  It is important for hardware and life science companies to have or seek formal protection of their IP (eg. provisional filing at the minimum), as this is seen very favorably when looking to raise funds from investors.  On the other hand, SaaS companies' products or services typically have shorter life cycles, seeking formal protection at the beginning may not be optimal, but waiting until the technology has been validated in the market might be the better strategy.   

• Licensing - This is a great strategy to reduce the risk while creating additional revenue channels. From an academic perspective, this is seen as the favorable method of commercialization because the licensed technology could be earlier in its maturity stage (TRL 3-4) without any market validation.  For startups, I advise them to look into their IP portfolio, and break it down to core and peripheral technologies.  Licensing peripheral technologies could be utilized as a strategy to provide additional revenue while keeping the core technologies internally to maintain market advantage. Additionally, for dual use technologies, one could consider licensing a core technology for a totally different market which doesn’t jeopardize your competitive advantage.

• Partnerships - In my opinion, this is by far the most common way for academic IP to reach the market.  Partnering with an industry partner provides a mechanism to further develop a particular IP for a specific industry application.  The original IP, during this partnership, becomes background IP, which the industry partner is granted a license to use under specific commercial terms.  For startups, partnering with a bigger organization offers the financial and logistical support to bring a product to the market.  This is common in the pharma industry, where a small biotech partners with an established pharma.  Successful outcomes are typically followed by the acquisition of the small biotech.

4/ What additional support do you think Canadian entrepreneurs need for successful IP licensing and commercialization?

Researchers in academic institutions have tech transfer offices to manage their IP.  Entrepreneurs outside of academic institutions don’t have access to the same IP services enjoyed by the academic researchers.  The launch of Intellectual Property Ontario (IPON) is definitely a step in the right direction.  Having access to IP support services and funding is critical in protecting the most important asset of your business.

5/ How do you see the role of AI and other emerging technologies influencing IP management in the next decade?

Computer technologies are the most frequently featured technologies in patent applications worldwide.  This trend will only increase as AI will be embedded in every technological field.  Having said that, I suspect AI related patent filing will become more difficult as the integration of AI becomes saturated in every sector.  Which in turn, will make trade secrets as the go to IP strategy for AI-based technologies.  Another interesting point related to AI, is the current lawsuits against OpenAI and their alleged copyright infringement.  Can companies utilize data that are publicly available for commercial purposes? Publicly available data does not mean it is in the public domain and without any IP rights.  This is an evolving space for sure.  Additionally, most current AI capabilities fall in the artificial narrow intelligence category.  Once we develop true artificial general intelligence, where it has human-like understanding, learning and reasoning, and capable of generating complex theories and ideas, then the inventorship guidelines for who can be considered an inventor will be challenged.  Currently, the US and many other jurisdictions, acknowledge only human creations as eligible for patent protection (other other IP rights).  If this doesn’t change in the future, I suspect this will be another reason why trade secrets will be the dominant IP strategy for AI technologies. 

Another IP right to keep an eye on is the semiconductor topography rights.  Due to the competitive nature of creating new computer chips, there might be efforts to harmonize the details of the subject matter, and potentially limit the reverse engineering exception rule to protect the new assets.  

6/ As someone deeply involved in innovation, what personal habits or routines do you find most beneficial for staying ahead in your field?

It is really hard to keep up these days due to the short life cycle of technologies.  I think it is important to have a pulse on the macro (big picture), while you are focusing on your specific niche market.  As things change so fast these days, you don’t want to be blind sided by new technological trends.

Personally, I sign up to newsletters like the ones from Chamath Palihapitiya (UofW alumni), TechCrunch, or Market Insights for a quick bullet point overview of what is happening.  I really enjoy listening to the Market Insights podcast if I wanted to dig in a little deeper.  This way, I find that I’m usually not blind sided by new emerging technology.

I hope you enjoyed this interview with Alla. If you’ve got any more questions, please share them in the comments. I’m looking forward to doing more interviews especially with IP and innovation experts, are there any industry gurus that you’d like to hear from? Share in the comments below.

🎨 About the artist

Georgy Kurnin is a renowned sci-fi artist known for his captivating and detailed illustrations of alien landscapes and futuristic scenes.