New Zealand: continuing innovation
Speech to ministerial seminar Bio 2007, Boston, United States
Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you here today in Boston.
The New Zealand economy is unusual in that it has persistently ranked among the high income developed nations of the world despite its export sector being largely grounded in primary resource based industries. It achieved that status by a constant application of science to the biological processes of farm and forest production, and of aquaculture. That science generated constant productivity gains, product and process improvement, and consistency of quality. It also spun out a steady stream of innovative products.
Historically, we were biotechnology pioneers before biotechnology was fashionable.
The result is that we have a robust science infrastructure, a culture of imaginative innovation, and an acceptance of biotechnology as a driver of progress.
New Zealand has also developed a tradition of international collaboration in science. Perhaps our most famous scientist was Earnest Rutherford who trained in New Zealand but teamed up with other colleagues at Cambridge University to famously split the atom.
It was in fact Rutherford who said of New Zealand, "We have very little money so now we have to think." While I can confidently say that financing of New Zealand science has improved significantly since Lord Rutherford's time, the quote underpins one of New Zealand's unique selling points. We have a history of taking a new or different approach. The growth in sophistication of New Zealand's products and technologies increasingly positions it as a leading biotech innovator.
The recently released New Zealand Biotech Industry Growth Report paints a picture of a healthy sector which continues to grow at a robust pace. Biotech export revenues increased by 30 per cent between 2004 and 2005 alone.
As a high-growth sector, biotech forms a very significant part of the government's investment in Research and Development.
This is not surprising given the strategic importance of biotechnology to New Zealand.
Biotech research plays a central role in driving long-term economic growth and prosperity for New Zealand. It fuels sector growth in new areas such as biomedical research and drug development, but critically, biotech research will sustain and transform New Zealand's economic backbone of biologically-based industries.
The world of the future is looking for greater functionality in their foods: it is looking for health benefits to be developed alongside nutrition. It is also looking at sustainability as an increasingly urgent international response to climate change.
Biotechnology will underpin the twin pronged response to heath and sustainability challenges.
Of course any innovation system can discover a new wonder drug or pathbreaking production process, and New Zealand will claim its fair share of these. But essentially we need to build out of our established strengths and proven competencies in developing our biotechnological place in the world.
As a government, we recognise the essential role we play in investing in the engine that drives biotech industry developments and innovation.
The recently launched Biotechnology Research Roadmap is a new initiative to set more explicit directions around science investment, and how New Zealand's research capabilities should develop to best meet future needs.
As everyone here today is aware, investing in biotech research is both a high risk and a long-term game. The roadmap is designed to ensure stability for the government's research investments over time.
Support and certainty is critical for New Zealand biotech organisations to continue to push boundaries and create the science and technology of tomorrow.
Some of the initiatives New Zealand has in place to do this include ensuring our world-leading academics based in New Zealand are adequately funded to continue their research.
We have also established an environment that promotes co-operation between research groups, through the Health Research Council and New Zealand's Centres of Research Excellence. This type of environment has meant researchers have had to co-operate, ensuring a multi-disciplinary approach to research. There are huge gains in this approach, working with big chunks of a puzzle, rather than small isolated pieces.
For small companies in New Zealand, IP protection can be prohibitively expensive. We have developed and funded mechanisms to enable companies to get the appropriate IP protection on R&D, and maximise investment.
Growth in New Zealand's biotech sector has been driven through growth in private sector biotechnology activities, supported by a stable public sector science capability..
New Zealand's publicly funded research organisations, Crown Research Institutes, have a strong commercialisation drive. The New Zealand government is committed to creating an environment where public sector research can be picked up and used by industry.
In summary, we see the future of our biotechnology sector in an amalgam of robust public funded science; building off an established competency in primary resource based industry; responding to global demands for healthy foods and environmentally sustainable production; conscripting commercial interests to mutual advantage; and looking outwards to international partnerships to penetrate markets and capture opportunities that will elude us if we try to go it alone.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you here today in Boston.
The New Zealand economy is unusual in that it has persistently ranked among the high income developed nations of the world despite its export sector being largely grounded in primary resource based industries. It achieved that status by a constant application of science to the biological processes of farm and forest production, and of aquaculture. That science generated constant productivity gains, product and process improvement, and consistency of quality. It also spun out a steady stream of innovative products.
Historically, we were biotechnology pioneers before biotechnology was fashionable.
The result is that we have a robust science infrastructure, a culture of imaginative innovation, and an acceptance of biotechnology as a driver of progress.
New Zealand has also developed a tradition of international collaboration in science. Perhaps our most famous scientist was Earnest Rutherford who trained in New Zealand but teamed up with other colleagues at Cambridge University to famously split the atom.
It was in fact Rutherford who said of New Zealand, "We have very little money so now we have to think." While I can confidently say that financing of New Zealand science has improved significantly since Lord Rutherford's time, the quote underpins one of New Zealand's unique selling points. We have a history of taking a new or different approach. The growth in sophistication of New Zealand's products and technologies increasingly positions it as a leading biotech innovator.
The recently released New Zealand Biotech Industry Growth Report paints a picture of a healthy sector which continues to grow at a robust pace. Biotech export revenues increased by 30 per cent between 2004 and 2005 alone.
As a high-growth sector, biotech forms a very significant part of the government's investment in Research and Development.
This is not surprising given the strategic importance of biotechnology to New Zealand.
Biotech research plays a central role in driving long-term economic growth and prosperity for New Zealand. It fuels sector growth in new areas such as biomedical research and drug development, but critically, biotech research will sustain and transform New Zealand's economic backbone of biologically-based industries.
The world of the future is looking for greater functionality in their foods: it is looking for health benefits to be developed alongside nutrition. It is also looking at sustainability as an increasingly urgent international response to climate change.
Biotechnology will underpin the twin pronged response to heath and sustainability challenges.
Of course any innovation system can discover a new wonder drug or pathbreaking production process, and New Zealand will claim its fair share of these. But essentially we need to build out of our established strengths and proven competencies in developing our biotechnological place in the world.
As a government, we recognise the essential role we play in investing in the engine that drives biotech industry developments and innovation.
The recently launched Biotechnology Research Roadmap is a new initiative to set more explicit directions around science investment, and how New Zealand's research capabilities should develop to best meet future needs.
As everyone here today is aware, investing in biotech research is both a high risk and a long-term game. The roadmap is designed to ensure stability for the government's research investments over time.
Support and certainty is critical for New Zealand biotech organisations to continue to push boundaries and create the science and technology of tomorrow.
Some of the initiatives New Zealand has in place to do this include ensuring our world-leading academics based in New Zealand are adequately funded to continue their research.
We have also established an environment that promotes co-operation between research groups, through the Health Research Council and New Zealand's Centres of Research Excellence. This type of environment has meant researchers have had to co-operate, ensuring a multi-disciplinary approach to research. There are huge gains in this approach, working with big chunks of a puzzle, rather than small isolated pieces.
For small companies in New Zealand, IP protection can be prohibitively expensive. We have developed and funded mechanisms to enable companies to get the appropriate IP protection on R&D, and maximise investment.
Growth in New Zealand's biotech sector has been driven through growth in private sector biotechnology activities, supported by a stable public sector science capability..
New Zealand's publicly funded research organisations, Crown Research Institutes, have a strong commercialisation drive. The New Zealand government is committed to creating an environment where public sector research can be picked up and used by industry.
In summary, we see the future of our biotechnology sector in an amalgam of robust public funded science; building off an established competency in primary resource based industry; responding to global demands for healthy foods and environmentally sustainable production; conscripting commercial interests to mutual advantage; and looking outwards to international partnerships to penetrate markets and capture opportunities that will elude us if we try to go it alone.