R&D loan for Proteomics business area |
Launch of new R&D program in 2005
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Business concept
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3 business areas were planned to pursue in Company
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Business plan was formulated, company existed still “on the paper” without own facilities.
Joint project with university to get grant/loan from Estonian Innovation Fund
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Management was hired
Lab facilities were rented and equipped
“normal” business was started
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New business area was launched. Two directions of exploitation of R&D results:
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Restructuring of one business area to expand our technological capabilities from protein expression to protein production and protein purification areas.
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Technology platform
Production mode
Market (industry, customer, competitors)
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A lot of R&D work had been conducted in University lab
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Licence agreement with university was signed to transfer IPR to company.
Work was done in university labs
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Extensive investments into equipment was made. Product family was tripled (based on similar technologies)
Systematic work for finding new customers
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Patent application was submitted
Market survey was too limited due to limited financial resources
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New technologies are licensed in and combined with in-house technologies.
Growth from lab scale to industrial scale
Market survey has to be sufficient to validate business plan.
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Finance
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Source and
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Use of capital
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2500 EUR invested by founders to meet minimal capital criteria
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First sales to the customer helped to pay for salary expenses and lab supplies
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Investments were financed by loan (200.000 EUR), everyday expenses were covered by sales.
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Appr 150.000 EUR loan from Enterprise Estonia was used mainly for R&D as equipment basis was already existent before.
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Grants combined with equity
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People
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Management,
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Other employees
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No personnel hired, people worked in University
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First lab technicians were hired
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Very soon the staff grew to 12 people
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New R&D group was formed, later 2 persons were hired to S&M department
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Hiring new scientists.
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Partners/ Network
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Purpose
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Advantages
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Mode of cooperation
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First customer was willing to start buying services
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Collabotation agreements with universities, Estonian Biocenter etc. (More like declarations)
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Started to find partners in other European countries
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Try to close pre-agreements with users of the technology/products in early stage.
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The company invested heavily in R&D work at the University lab in Tartu. People involved had strong technology know-how in the field. Company has limited international cooperation in R&D.
Quattromed has an experience with a number of Finnish and Swedish clients in conducting research experiments. Presently joint projects running with Canadians, Italians and Germans.
Market
Fermentas, a Lithuanian company became the first retailer of Quattromed products.
Establishing contacts abroad the company’s managers experience difficulties in adjusting to regional business cultures and defining target customer group. It would have been useful for the company to have more information on potential clients than just the information from web pages. The product of the company is highly customized, thus the company usually interested in establishing close relations with its clients. It is rather difficult to initiate this kind of relation outside well-known home market. Even taking part in relevant fairs does not always bring expected effect.
Finance
Quattromed is the only biotechnology company in Estonia, the shares of which have been subject to trade sale. In 2002, FIT Biotech Plc, a Finnish biotech company that since 2001 also runs R&D facilities in Estonia, acquired 22.4 % of the shares of company. FIT Biotech also has the option to obtain the remaining shares of
Quattromed, up to 100 %, until 2006.
TTO support
Limited support of TTO with respect to the internationalization process, as the company customers are mostly Estonians.