Conscious Commercialization and Agile Biobanking: Part II

Conscious Commercialization and Agile Biobanking

A Three Part Series in Biobank Business Planning: Part II
By Lisa B Miranda, President and Chief Executive Officer, Biobusiness Consulting Incorporated
6/30/2015

PART II

Start with Part I.

One of my key recommendations around strategic business planning for biobanks is to take time to develop tools for success. This includes a putting together a financial roadmap, plan, process and mechanism for recovering costs. Though many biobanks were created with monies from publicly available grants and internal stakeholder funding, the days of “wine and honey” are long gone. With grant applications converting to contract mechanisms, funding in limited supply and requirements for return on stakeholder investment increasing, monetization of existing bioresources through cost recovery is now essential. Willing acceptance of this reality in tandem with timely cultural change about ways to garner revenue makes all the difference in the outcome.

So, let’s return to the topic of conscious commercialization and how this fits in: What do you mean by the term “conscious commercialization”?

Conscious commercialization begins with thinking about how business rules can meet the needs of the entire stakeholder community and still fulfill one’s bottom line. It incorporates a well-defined and thoughtful process about how to monetize an entity - i.e. biospecimen core facility. Groups that focus on finding creative, mixed and/or alternative mechanisms to generate revenue are essentially commercializing a percentage of their operations.

The term, “conscious commercialization” emanated from an idea in the business world disseminated by Whole Foods Market co-founder John Mackey and Raj Sisoda, PhD. The strategy centers on the belief that both business and capitalism are inherently good and that one can build on the foundations of capitalism, (e.g. voluntary exchange, entrepreneurship, competition, freedom to trade and the rule of law.) According to the theory, for a company to really be healthy it must incorporate elements of relationship building i.e. trust, compassion, collaboration and value creation.

Mackey and Sisoda’s philosophy is built on four pillars: higher purpose, stakeholder orientation, conscious leadership and conscious culture. These pillars (seen below in Figures 1 & 2) also intuitively apply to business considerations in the biobanking world, what we refer to as “biobusiness”:


The four pillars adapted for biobank business planning (“biobusiness”):

Higher Purpose (a.k.a. Mission): Recognizing that every biobank has some mission that defines its creation and higher purpose. While its purpose may not necessarily be to generate profit, it does bring in dependable sources of funds and/or revenue. This revenue can drive the mission forward. By sustainability focusing on its mission, the biobank can inspire, engage and energize its stakeholders.

Stakeholder Orientation: Recognizing that the capability to achieve innovation in medicine, life science, and biobanking is interdependent and reliant on the human foundations of business. A biobank needs to create tangible value with and for its various stakeholders (e.g. funders, customers, employees, vendors, investors, scientific and medical communities, etc.). Real time recognition of this fact leads to a healthy business system.

Conscious Leadership: Biobanks are created and guided by leaders – people who see a path and inspire others to travel along the path. Conscious Leaders understand and embrace the Higher Purpose (mission) of business and focus on creating value for and harmonizing the interests of the business stakeholders. They recognize the integral role of culture and purposefully cultivate Conscious Culture.

Conscious Culture: The core values, principles and practices – underlying the social fabric of the biobank’s business infrastructure and key activities, which connects the stakeholders to each other integrating the purpose, people and processes that comprise the value of the organization.

Figures and text adapted from the book “Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business” by John Mackey and Raj Sisoda, PhD and website reference: www.consciouscapitalism.org

The take home for me, at least from reading about their idea, is that commercialization to some degree while not for everyone can be a positive activity. It can be leveraged successfully to meet your business goals while still serving your biobank’s organizational mission. One can inherently create more value by applying validated business strategies that clearly define the goals of your organization (e.g. biobank) while working cooperatively with your stakeholders to help drive economic viability. We can utilize the free market economy as an opportunity to drive progress forward. Biobanks and their stakeholders (including industry) play synergistic roles in innovation. We all need each other to thrive.

Tune in on July 7th for part three of the series when I present observations from peer case studies demonstrating how conscious commercialization and agile biobanking strategies can drive success in biobank utilization.

About the Author:
Lisa Miranda is President & Chief Executive Officer of Biobusiness Consulting Incorporated, a biobanking and biotechnology commercialization advisory with global reach based in the Greater Boston Area. She has 25 years of experience, complimented with 14 years of higher education including nine years of graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN). She began her career in clinical care and community based research in local hospitals and then moved to clinical and epidemiology research. She spent over 14 years in research at UPENN conducting clinical and investigator initiated trials to bring new drugs and clinical therapies to market, testing and helping develop emerging medical/surgical technologies, diagnostic devices and evaluating novel biotechniques. In 2005 she launched and directed her first core facility a biospecimen resource for UPENN called TTAB. Recruited for her first consulting job in 2007 as a contractor for the United States National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute’s Biorepositories and Biospecimens Research Branch (BBRB), she expanded her consulting practice full time in 2008. Known worldwide as a biobanking and clinical research subject matter expert, much of her work focuses on: biobank business planning, strategic development of biospecimen research applications and biotechnology commercialization. Prior biobanking and biotechnology commercialization Executive positions have included: Vice President, Strategy and Business Development for MEMS based Biotechnology Company Bluechiip, Vice President, Strategic Alliances and International Biobank Relations, Trans-Hit Biomarkers, and Technical Director, Tumor Tissue and Biospecimen Bank Core Facility, UPENN. For more information email Lisa: lisabmiranda@biobusinessconsulting.com or download her 2014 podcast on the future of biobanking.

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Conscious Commercialization and Agile Biobanking

A Three Part Series in Biobank Business Planning
By Lisa B Miranda, President and Chief Executive Officer, Biobusiness Consulting Incorporated
 
Part I:

Forward-looking market statements tout biobanking as a burgeoning and bountiful global market. For example, the company Vision Gain published in September 2014 that “the biobank world market will reach $22.7 billion in 2018.  In particular, rising demand for biobanked samples for use by pharmaceutical companies in preclinical research stimulates that market.” Despite the potential business opportunity for biobank growth and market expansion, economic viability remains a prevalent pressing issue for biobanks globally.  

So, why aren’t all biobanks thriving if the market earning potential is there? Well, that is a longer conversation. However, the short answer, based on my expertise, is that the biobanks who are thriving are doing so because they are readily implementing key business success factors into daily practice.   

Based on a review of sustainability case studies I conducted last fall, the first of these critical success factors is the recognition that sustainability is a legitimate imminent financial concern. No one is immune. Longevity is not necessarily an indicator of sustainability. It’s not unreasonable to say this because in today’s economic climate, we observe both notable well established as well as new biobanks dealing with sustainability issues. As John F. Kennedy said, “Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."  

Once you recognize that sustainability is crucial, time is off the essence. Proactive strategic planning is imperative and should follow the same logic as beginning your retirement planning: it’s never too early. The sooner you make a financial roadmap, the better. 

In fact, in some cases new biobanks may be able to be more agile and adaptive in this regard, since their business model and infrastructure may not be predetermined and thereby malleable. This is particularly true for implementation of a cost recovery model.  As many Biobank Directors will convey it can be problematic to successfully recover costs for a sample, product and/or service if it was historically provided free of charge. It also can be more difficult to identify and understand cost components later. In an economic survey of over 100 biobanks last year conducted for a client we found this to be true. Web based applications (e.g. US NIH/NCI BBRB biobank economic modeling tool (the BEMT) and CTRNET user fee calculator) can be useful tools for positive steps towards developing an informed model for cost recovery. 

Driving culture change around financial planning can be crucially expedited by securing organizational support and commitment to devote resources towards evaluating the need to do things more sustainably. This can often be a catch-22 situation however as one often needs to show a reasonable business plan, market value and/or a path to impact to garner unwavering support. The work is worth it though as biobanks with organizations that support a culture of change towards cost recovery and sustainable development typically experience compounded success in this area. 

I can relay happily that this is a valid observation from my past life as a Core Facility Director.  I also see this frequently firsthand with the organizations I work with, both public and private.  These issues are not necessarily sector-specific - they merely present differently. My first attempt at a business plan in Academia for my bioresource required a second revision, but it was well worth the time. And looking back dozens of business plans later, I try to use those lessons learned with clients in real time. And as Mark Sanborn so wisely said, "Your success in life isn't based on your ability to simply change. It is based on your ability to change faster than your competition, customers and business."  

Tune in June 30th for part two of the series when we discuss how  “conscious commercialization” is another critical factor for success in business planning.

About the Author:
Lisa Miranda is President & Chief Executive Officer of Biobusiness Consulting Incorporated, a biobanking and biotechnology commercialization advisory with global reach based in the Greater Boston Area. She has 25 years of experience, complimented with 14 years of higher education including nine years of graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania. She began her career in clinical care and community based research and then moved to clinical and epidemiology research. She spent over 14 years in research at the University of Pennsylvania conducting clinical and investigator initiated trials to bring new drugs and clinical therapies to market, testing and helping develop emerging medical/surgical technologies, diagnostic devices and evaluating novel biotechniques. In 2005 she launched and directed her first core facility a biospecimen resource for UPENN called TTAB. Recruited for her first consulting job in 2007 as a contractor for the United States National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute’s Biorepositories and Biospecimens Research Branch (BBRB), she expanded her consulting practice full time in 2008. Known worldwide as a biobanking and clinical research subject matter expert, much of her work focuses on biobank business planning, strategic development of biospecimen research applications and biotechnology commercialization. Prior biobanking and biotechnology commercialization. Executive positions have included Vice President, Strategy and Business Development for MEMS based Biotechnology Company Bluechiip, Vice President, Strategic Alliances and International Biobank Relations, Trans-Hit Biomarkers, and Technical Director, Tumor Tissue and Biospecimen Bank Core Facility, UPENN). For more information email Lisa: lisabmiranda@biobusinessconsulting.com or download her 2014 podcast on the future of biobanking.

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