COMPARISON OF KEY ENABLERS FOR THE SUCCESSFUL COMERCIALIZATION OF BIOINFORMATICS PRODUCTS IN MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE

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1 COMPARISON OF KEY ENABLERS FOR THE SUCCESSFUL COMERCIALIZATION OF BIOINFORMATICS PRODUCTS IN MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE Revathi NAGARETHAM Mohamed Irwan Shah Mohd SHAH Abdul Rahman Ahmad DAHLAN Bioinformatics Division, Institute of Biological Science University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Bioinformatics Division, Institute of Biological Science University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Department of Information Systems Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology International Islamic University ABSTRACT Bioinformatics can be defined as collection, organization and analysis of large amount of biological data. The exploration of science and technology (S&T) is very important for the firm s and country s growth. Malaysia had started looking at bioinformatics in 1997 but with a controversial issue. In 1999 the link between bioinformatics and biotechnology in Malaysia that called Biotechnology and Bioinformatics network has been launched to produce community of bioinformatics developers who can develop tools to be used by the biologist. Bioinformatics was introduced in Singapore in 1992 with the 158

2 focus on mirroring of data collection and sequence analysis application development. Bioinformatics in Singapore started to develop when National University of Singapore (NUS) took deeper research on Kleisli system in Research and development (R&D) is seen as a huge influence in Malaysia and Singapore economic growth. The reason is because successful product that been produce by R&D will gave greater impact on the country s economy. Government funding aid, education system, government policies and commercialization management are some of the key enablers that can influence the quality of R&D products. KEY WORDS Bioinformatics, Commercialization, R&D, policies, education, key enabler, innovation. JEL CODES Q16, Q55, O INTRODUCTION The purpose of this paper is to study and make the comparison between Malaysia and Singapore on the key enablers involved in successful lab to commercialization of their bioinformatics based research products. And to discuss the possible solutions to improve the commercial value of local bioinformatics research product in global market. Bioinformatics is defined as the collection, organization and analysis of large amounts of biological data which will be used in the creation and advancement of algorithms, computational and statistical techniques. The practical application in various biological filed like biotechnology, genomics, proteomics, molecular biology, biomedical sciences and biological diversity are still incomplete without bioinformatics. Currently, the exploration of science and technology (S&T) is very important for the growth of firms as well as nations. Understanding this idea, all the countries in Asia and Europe are being motivated to create new products and services to the global market using more innovative approaches. In Malaysia, the idea of biotechnology and bioinformatics research was a controversial issue in However, in 1999 The National Biotechnology and Bioinformatics network or its acronym NBBnet was officially launched to produce a community of bioinformatics developers who can develop bioinformatics tools to be used by the molecular biologist (Raih et. al, 2003). The scenario in Singapore is slightly different compared to Malaysia. Bioinformatics was introduced in Singapore in early At that point of time, the focus was on mirroring of data collection and development of sequence analysis application. Bioinformatics in Singapore started to develop when National University of Singapore (NUS) took on deeper research on Kleisli system in This successful research attracted several large international pharmaceutical companies to invest in Singapore on bioinformatics research (Eisenhaber et. al, 2009)

3 2.0 THE KEY ENABLERS FOR THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF BIOINFORMATICS PRODUCTS. Malaysian government and Singapore government is giving more importance in Research and Development (R&D) sector. The reason is because successful result from R&D and innovation plays a key role in advancing S&T in a knowledge-based and innovation-driven economy. For example, Malaysian government has established a special ministry called Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) to provide guidance and policies to encourage research universities and institutes to increase the productivity and competitiveness of research findings in market. Whereas, in Singapore, National Research Foundation (NRF) acts to reinforce Singapore s R&D potential by inspiring greater innovation and by nurturing technology-based enterprises (NRF, 2011a). In general, MOSTI and NRF have the same mission which is to encourage people to do more market value research and commercialize their products in global market. There are few key enablers identified as the contributors for the commercialization of the research products. 2.1 Funding Innovation and commercialization of bioinformatics products requires sufficient funding from government or non-governmental agencies. The Malaysian government carried out various measures to strengthen commercialization of research results like setting up research institutions and providing incentives and commercialization grants. Realizing the importance of R&D and innovation, few agencies were started to get involved in managing funds and implementing programs to spur the commercialization activities like the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC), Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC), Malaysia Venture capital Management (MAVCAP), Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation. The Malaysian Government has initiated a competitive funding, called the TechnoFund through MOSTI, to undertake the pre commercialization of new and/or cutting edge technologies in the Ninth Malaysia Plan ( ). The main aim of TechnoFund is to stimulate the growth and successful innovation of Malaysian technology-based enterprises by increasing their level of R&D and commercialization and increase capability and capacity of Malaysian Government Research Institutes (GRI) and research universities to undertake market driven R&D and to commercialize the R&D outputs through spinoffs/licensing (UUM, 2012). MTDC provides funding called as The Commercialization of Research and Development Fund (CRDF) which gives partial grants to qualified R&D projects for commercialization up to a maximum of 50% to 70% of approved eligible expenses or RM2 million (FMM, 2012). Malaysian government also introduced Multimedia Super Corridor R&D Grant Scheme (MGS), started in the year 1997 to promote the development of the R&D clusters. Besides providing funding, the Malaysian government also introduces tax incentives through the Promotion of Investments Act 1986 which allows double deduction for R&D 160

4 projects by the private companies in carrying out activities which is crucial to the nation's industrialization drive (Ahmad and Krisha, 2006). Under the 10 th Malaysian Plan (10 MP) the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) has introduced Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) to promote research activities among universities. Recently, MOHE also announces other research grants like ERGS, LRGS, and PRGS in order to enhance research activities in Malaysia. These grants are awarded for researchers to discover new theories, ideas, and innovations particularly, in cutting edge fields that have been identified by the Malaysian government. In total the Malaysian government has allocated about RM741 million for R&D among the universities for the first two years of the 10 MP. The budget announced for 2010 has allocated RM billion to create an economy based on innovation through Research, Development and Commercialization initiatives at university levels. Figure 1.1: Types of funding and grants by Malaysian government in enhancing R&D projects and products commercialization. (Source: Kassim, 2009) In Singapore, the amount of government s financial commitment to education stayed about the same since 1962 which is around 3 percent of the government gross domestic product (GDP). The amount of public education expenses has increased from 10.8 percent to 19.8 percent between 1962 and Strategic basic research grew 9.5 percent from SGD million in 2009 to SGD million in Applied research grew of 6.6 percent from SGD million in 2009 to SGD million in Experimental Development grew by 8.2 percent from SGD million in 2009 to SGD million in 2010 (A*STAR, 2011a). The National Research Foundation (NRF), as a government agency in Singapore that is responsible in enhancing research capacity, innovation and entrepreneurship has provided some initiatives to increase the country s research capacity and capabilities. It does not only provide method for Singapore but also highlights new strategic focus areas for Singapore to maintain the competitive 161

5 quality, and being a proper channel for attracting, nurturing and anchoring the research talents. Many career opportunities in R&D have inspired more students to pursue advance higher education. One of the incentives offered by NRF was Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE). The main goal of CREATE was to create an innovation centre between a number of world-class research centres, Singapore s national universities, polytechnics laboratories and research institute (NRF, 2011b). The other initiatives by the Singapore s government was tax exemption for ten years and low corporation tax to any firm that performs R&D projects mostly in priority field (Marjanovic & Chonail, 2010). Besides that, the Singapore government also provides NRF Fellowship Scheme research grant as much as S$3 million over five years to every Fellow in any research direction that exhibit high chances of research breakthrough (NRF, 2012). Figure 1.2: Type of Business Expenditure on R&D ( ) (Source: A*STAR, 2011a) 162

6 There are several grants provided to support scientists and engineers in its research institute. Some of the grants are: Bilateral Joint Research Grants Calls (International) BMRC General Grant Calls BMRC Consortia Grants Calls BMRC Local Symposium Sponsorship SERC Public Sector Funding SERC Thematic Strategic Research Programme SERC Biomedical Engineering Programme (BEP) A*STAR-CIMIT Joint Call for Proposals. These are the grants that been provided from A*STAR: A*STAR Joint Council Project Grant A*STAR Joint Council Career Development Award A*STAR Joint Council Development Programme Grant A*STAR Joint Council Visiting InvestigatorshipProgramme Grant Funding for A*STAR Joint Council Workshops (Source: A*STAR, 2011b) Figure 1.3: R&D Expenditure in Singapore between public and private sector (Source: A*STAR, 2011c) 163

7 2.2 Government Policies In Malaysia, the evolution of Science and Technology has initiated in 1986 through the First national Science and Technology Policy (NSTPI) with the mission of achieving scientific and technological development especially to speed up the economic growth, the industrial development and also to create high-tech (advanced) society (Ahmad &Krisha, 2006). In 2005, the Malaysian Biotechnology Policy was launched and was designated as a strategic industry within the country s economic development strategy. There was 3-phased implementation plan in this policy. The Phase1 ( ) focuses on building the foundation which supports the biotechnology industry s growth. The Phase2 ( ) plans to develop the industry s potentials and competencies to achieve more rapid commercialization of biotechnology products and finally the Phase3 ( ) is expected to be the achievement phase where the industry is fully transformed into the country s important source of economy(mosti, 2005). There are also other agencies and institutions involved in policy making committee chaired by the prime minister to improvise the commercialization process in Malaysia. The involved agencies are the National Innovation Council (NIC), Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) and Ministry of Finance (MOF) (Adham et. al, 2011). In Singapore, a newly industrialized country that among highest in per capita income, pursue of fast economic growth has been successfully implemented in Singapore. The industrial policy in Singapore has involved the pursuit of advancement strategy in the technology and manufacturing sectors. In the first decade after the independence from Malaysia, Singapore focuses into the success in technological manufacturing sector by largely propelled through labor-intensive with foreign multinationals industries. The result is about three-quarters of Singapore s output are coming from the multinational companies (MNC) and more than sixty percent of manufacturing sector s equity being overseas. Wong suggested that Singapore s overall economic development path is categorized in four phase: 1) industrial take-off plan phase which is from middle of 1965 to 1970 which was characterize by the necessity of technology transfer from foreign MNC, 2) strengthening of the local technology which is from the middle of 1970 to the late of 1980, 3) applied R&D expansion in the late 1980 to late 1990 and it characterized by the fast development of applied R&D activities by global MNC along with newly establish and developed public R&D institutes to boost MNC s products and process innovation activities, 4) shifting towards high technology entrepreneurship and basic R&D that was started from 1990 onwards. The fourth phase is characterized by developing the importance of local technological capabilities, the creation of local hightech start-up, and move towards science-based industry mainly life-science. In the early of 1990 with effort to establish Singapore as regional R&D and innovation state, the state has intensified the policy action to strengthen the national innovation system. The government create research institute in information and technology (IT), microelectronics and life science in order to attract foreign MNC to place R&D activities in Singapore. In the end of nineties, policy efforts grew more pronounced to generate a national innovation system that would help and make higher amount of local innovation activities. The main institutions that have grown to help the information and communication (ICT) industry include Ministry of Communication & Information Technology (MCIT), Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), Media Development Authority (MDA) and National Science and Technology Board 164

8 (NSTB). In 1996, the Singapore government focuses in locally targeted plan with the Innovation Program, with the objective to create a wide base of local creative capabilities within Singapore. One of the recent policy initiatives, the Intelligent Nation initiatives continue to locate a pronounced effort in refining innovative performance by enriching knowledge flows. By the beginning in 2006, IDA implements the ten year Intelligent Nation plan to urge the use of ICT throughout Singapore. Most R&D in Singapore generally focus in applied rather than basic research. The applied researches that already commence inclined to be government-extracted, usually turn into public-private cooperation in order to solve production problems. Overall, Singapore s government looks forward on the production of an original commercial outcome (Monroe, 2006). The first Singapore s Nation Technology Plan was introduced in 1991 and it is mainly focus on improving the economic competitiveness. The plan was formulated to guide the development of science and technology in Singapore. The plan was implemented by NSTB with a funding of SGD 2 billion for 5 years and positioned Singapore on the path of rapid technological growth. The second Plan called National Science and Technology Plan had transformed Singapore closer to having world-class science and technology capabilities. SGD 4 billion has been allocated to strengthen manpower, support industry R&D and local R&D capability. The third plan, Science and Technology (S&T) Plan 2005 was developed from first and second Singapore Plans. It allocate SGD 6 billion budget. SGD 4 billion to A*STAR to increase local R&D capabilities and SGD 2 billion to Economic Development Board (EDB) to encourage private sector R&D (Ministry of Trade and Industry Singapore, 2006). The fifth Plan is Science and Technology 2010 Plan with SGD13.55 billion budget has been allocated. SGD 5 billion allocated to NRF for long-term strategic programs, SGD 7.5 billion to the Ministry of Trade and Industry for economic oriented R&D and investment on related promotion activities, and SGD 1.05 billion to the Ministry of Education for academic research (Ministry of Trade and Industry Singapore, 2006). The aim of this plan is to sustaining innovation growth. There are five strategic thrusts been identified and have been approved by the Singapore government. Firstly, establish Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council (RIEC) to give recommendation to the Singapore s government on national research, innovation and enterprise strategies. Secondly, focus on identifying and developing selected R&D areas that have economic importance where Singapore can be internationally competitive. Thirdly, build up the whole range of research abilities, from the basic research to develop the foundation for scientific research, to missionoriented research with better integration into industry. Fourthly, the plan focuses on expanding the private sector share of R&D. Lastly, increase connections between R&D and business with the focus on generating stronger co-funding framework between industry and public education (Ministry of Trade and Industry Singapore, 2006). Table 1.1 summarizes Singapore s Science and Technology Plans from 1991 to

9 5-year S&T Plan Period Budget Key Thrust National Technology Plan (NTP) National Science & Technology Plan (NSTP) Securing future Science and Technology 2005 (S&T2005) Plan Science and Technology 2010 (S&T2010) Plan Sustaining innovation-driven growth SGD 2 billion Develop a technology infrastructure Support of private sector R&D Develop R&D manpower SGD 4 billion Deepen long-term technological capabilities and engage in medium-and longer-term technology development SGD 6 billion Strengthen R&D capabilities in targeted areas Nurture local talent and recruiting global talent Promote industry SGD billion Focus on selected areas of economic importance Balance of investigator-led and mission-oriented research Encourage more private sector R&D Strengthen linkages between R&D and business Table 1.1: Science and Technology Plans ( ). (Source: A*STAR, 2011d) National Framework for Innovation and Enterprise shown in Figure 1.4 was introduced by NRF in March 2008 to support technology transfer and R&D commercialization. SGD 350 million funds from 2008 to 2012 are allocated to the initiatives under the framework which include numerous schemes to enable transfer of technology and utilization of intellectual property (Marjanovic & Chonaill, 2010)

10 Figure 1.4: National R&D Framework. (Source: Ministry of Trade and Industry Singapore, 2006) 2.3 Education System Education system plays an important role in generating excellent or talented students for the country. The government s initiative in improving the education system is important to cater the generation of talented students who in future involves in R&D projects and commercialize their products. This is because proper and high quality education helps to mould good students or citizens who can deliver more valuable innovations to improve the country s economy status. In Malaysia, bioinformatics course has been taught in number of public and private universities. The syllabuses of the course between these universities are not standardized. One of the biggest challenges being faced in current situation is the depth at which bioinformatics course is being taught. Pevzner and Pearson had commented that broad introduction to bioinformatics without the necessary depth will produce bioinformatics technicians rather than bioinformatics scientists. Currently, most of the biologists in Malaysia prefer using the existing bioinformatics tools without even understanding the underlying principles behind this software. Not only that, most of the bioinformatics text books in market are protocol-centric and cookbook styled. This is one of the main reason the country produce more students who are severely lacking in skills for pursuing careers in bioinformatics R&D projects (Shamsir et, al. 2006)

11 Another challenge being faced in Malaysian education system is lack of trained or experienced educators for conducting the course. Not only bioinformatics, any field requires specialist educators with in-depth knowledge of all the different components. Most of the universities in Malaysia offering bioinformatics courses are currently lacking of specialist and experienced bioinformatics staffs resort to interdisciplinary and cross faculty teaching. Only by utilizing experts in their respective areas will ensure a well-taught course with necessary breadth and depth (Shamsir et, al. 2006). Meanwhile in Singapore, there are only two universities that provide formal education and training in bioinformatics field. The first is a master s program at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and second is bachelor s program at National University of Singapore (NUS). In master s program at NTU offers a two-year for part-time students or one-year for full time students. This program is aimed for students that have significant scientific and technical background mostly in engineering and science. The syllabus for this program provides them with skills to create well-validated method in problem solving that related with bioinformatics field. Students will have a sufficient time to learn about tools use and later on tool development. There are six core module, two elective and one project that need to be completed for the full-time students, while part-time students need to complete an additional elective modules instead of project in order to graduate. Because the nature of this program which is considered as a multidisciplinary, the lessons ability is drawn from the whole range of engineering and science schools at NTU. The bachelor s program in NUS can be divided into two degrees. Science-based students will receive a B.Sc (Bioinformatics) and computing based students will receive B.Comp. (Bioinformatics). Both degrees share a fundamental set of bioinformatics courses and basic biology and computing courses. The core courses of this program follow three modules which are: introductory computational biology module, a module on combinatorial methods in bioinformatics, and knowledge discovery methods in bioinformatics module (Eisenhaber et, al. 2009). S* Life Science Informatics Alliance is the first and oldest bioinformatics program in Singapore. This is the cooperation between KarolinskaInstiutet, NUS, Standford University, UC San Diego, University of Sydney, University of Uppasal and the University of Western Cape. This collaboration provide a worldwide, integrated bioinformatics learning environment made up of modular courses in the discipline of genomics, bioinformatics and medical informatics. The modules are compiled from selected lecturers of the seven universities and also offered distance learning (NUS, 2003). 2.4 Commercialization management The meaning of commercialization is generating revenue by marketing products to the public. Hence, commercialization has a great impact on the country s economic development. It consists of orderly series like building a prototype, testing its feasibility, and progressing to completing product development and design (Kamil et. al, 2007). The important factor of commercialization is recognizing and promoting technology transfers to promote to an innovative economy, leading to wealth generation and also increase new job creation for the public

12 Although Malaysian government has planned many ideas to improve commercialization, there are few factors being obstacles for the achievement. One of the identified backstop is the national progress in Intellectual Property and technology commercialization. Compared to USA, Malaysia has to admit that we are very poor in the patent applications. Up to date, Malaysia is still relying on public, foreign and large firms R&D activities for patent application and commercialization. Even when the public sector R&D contributes to the technical contribution but the result of commercialization is still very low. Not only that, the success of commercialization is Malaysia is being limited between few R&D organizations in Malaysia like Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia (RRIM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) (Damadaran, 2010). Among all the Malaysian Universities, the only research university had the highest commercialization output is University Technology Malaysia (UTM). The reason behind this is the well planned collaboration between the Malaysian government and UTM. The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) reported the research commercialization achievement by the Malaysian public universities up till August 2008 showed that out of 16 public universities, Malaysia had only managed to commercialize 58 out of the 313 products identified to have commercial values (Aziz et. al, 2011). The Innovating Malaysia article has clearly explained that, open innovation can be succeed by adopting the Quadruple Helix Model (Citizen, Government, Universities, Industry). This means that, the four involving parties must work and collaborate together to promote innovative valued products with market value to enhance the commercialization state (Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, 2012). Singapore s government gives incentive and fund to boost the commercial rate in the country. National Framework for Innovation and Enterprise has been established in Singapore to assist and facilitate innovation culture growth and encouraging conditions for science commercialization. Singapore s main agency for enterprise development, SPRING Singapore help companies improve finance and construct business development capabilities by partnership. SPRING Singapore introduce Technology Enterprise Commercialization Scheme program to assist enterprise to access grant to produce technology ideas at the conceptualization stage and develop a working prototype. Intellectual property policies and technology transfer infrastructure has been introduced to allow the R&D benefits in economy to be harness. Singapore has harmonized its intellectual property and copyright law with global law to balance the owner right protection and increasing public access to it (Marjanovic & Chonaill, 2010). Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is a Singapore s government agency that has realized several initiatives to catalyze the biotechnology industry development through strategic marketing and commercialization arm. A*STAR has provided some funding grants for the commercialization effort which are A*STAR Pre-Commercialization of Technology (A*PRE*COT), Commercialization of Technology (COT) and Flagship Projects. The A*PRE*COT fund help the researchers to develop further the earlystage discoveries to reveal the commercial value and to add number of projects in A*STAR s commercialization channel. The COT fund was aimed to form a pool of market ready technologies for commercial applications, refinement for mass production and enhancements. In Flagship Project, novel 169

13 technology areas are recognized in the early of research value chain to create application driven, multidisciplinary project with commercialization outcome (A*STAR. 2011e). Partnering between public and private sector is one of the efforts taken to commercialize products. The public sectors consist of research institutions, universities and tertiary institutions will collaborate with private sectors mainly from multinational firms. The idea of it is to translate the practical into innovative products, service and application by the public institution and this will be strongly influence by the private sector into commercialization market. One of the examples in Singapore is the collaboration between Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP), Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) and a private firm to produce diagnostic kits and vaccines against economic important aquaculture disease (Fai, 2011). 3.0 DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATION The Ministry of Higher Education s focus in terms of driving R&D activities among the universities had changed from the establishment of a research culture ( ), into driving a quality research ( ), and most recently in promoting the research excellence by producing innovation and its commercialization methods ( ). There are few factors identified to be the challenges in increasing the success rate in Malaysia compared to Singapore. There are many funding projects introduced by the government to encourage commercial value R&D projects. In Malaysia, there is still lack of funding and incentives to support private sectors research commercialization. The common problem faced by the private sectors research commercialization is the high failure rate of new firms, obtaining conventional loans from the banking system is difficult. Knowing the fact that the yield from bioinformatics research is not immediate most of the banks is very reluctant in approving loans. Most of the R&Ds carried out in Singapore has more market value in Singapore itself. Hence, the funding is still on-going as more R&Ds which are beneficial for Singapore is being innovated. One of the reasons for Singapore s success is that it is a competitive country which can be easily managed. All the policies introduced in Singapore can be easily planned and executed unlike Malaysia. Besides that, the transparency level in Singapore is very much high compared to Malaysia (Transparency International, 2011) being one of the reason majority of the MNC interested in starting their R&D projects there and work together with Singapore during commercialization phase. The other factors which lead to lower success rate of commercialization in Malaysia is the implementation of the policies. There are hundreds of policies being introduced in Malaysia to speed up the success rate of commercialization, but there is no one standard steps to follow. Each policy being introduced has different ideas and plans which are not interrelated. In another word, there is a very poor coordination between the research universities, government and industry. The situation in Singapore is slightly different where there are limited policies and the policies are always highlighted and used as the reference in conducting any R&D project for commercialization. The good communication between the 170

14 government, research institutes and MNC draws a standard protocol to increase the successful rate of products with commercial properties. The quality of education does influence the increase of commercial value products. For example, Malaysia is lacking of bioinformatics expertise to encourage more bioinformatics based R&Ds and invents commercial value products. Most of the educators in bioinformatics filed in Malaysia majored in different field. Insufficient knowledge and experience is found to be one of barrier for Malaysia to invent bioinformatics based research yield with commercial properties. Unlike Singapore, some of the key people involved in bioinformatics R&Ds are from Europe. The combination of knowledge and experience from the locals and imported people in bioinformatics field is a plus point for Singapore to develop valuable commercial value products. Study by Kamarulzaman has mentioned that UTM s Strategic Orientation for Research, Development and Commercialisation is excellent framework and can be adopted by other local universities to encourage commercial value research products. Below is the framework by UTM which lead the university in winning the National Intellectual Property Award of organization category, three times (Aziz et, al. 2011). Figure 1.5: UTM s Strategic Orientation for Research, Development and Commercialization (Source: UTM, 2011) 171

15 The Innovation Unit and Commercialization Unit of UTM plays their role in providing assistance to the UTM inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs by making their ideas more commercially successful through networking with industry and affiliate partners assisting the UTM inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs in the formation of spin-off start-ups, joint ventures and partnerships respectively. The main of ICC is to educate UTM inventors to do own patent search, market search and so on through a series of related courses. A scoring system is being used to evaluate each invention based on certain areas. This method can be adopted by other research universities in Malaysia to produce commercial value bioinformatic research products (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2011). 4.0 CONCLUSION Bioinformatics R&D projects is still a new industry is Asia. Besides that, the bioinformatics research is always linked with other biological fields. The Malaysian government has taken several initiatives to promote the bioinformatics products into market, but there are few factors been identified to be barriers for the achievement. This can be improved and changed if Malaysia follows other successful countries footstep in encouraging more commercial value bioinformatics products in the global market. Although Singapore is a smaller country compared to Malaysia, but the successful rate of bioinformatics products being commercialized is high. Malaysia can collaborate with Singapore to identify the weakness areas and find ways to overcome these issues. Not only that, conferences and research idea exchange can be carried out often to groom the locals to produce more commercial value products to the market. Apart from concentrating on commercial value products, Malaysia also need to improve the commercialization skills. Compared to other countries who have commercialized their products in global market like MOTOROLA and SIEMENS, the standard of Malaysian commercialization is very poor. All these factors can be overcome if Malaysia is willing to approach the successful countries and take initiatives to improve and change areas that need to improvised and changed. The Malaysian government has initiated all the plans; the only thing left is self-grooming. REFERENCES A*STAR 2011a. National Survey of R*D in Singapore Retrieve from Accessed on March 16, A*STAR. 2011b. Grants & Sponsorhips. Retrieve from Accessed on March 16, A*STAR 2011c. A*STAR Yearbook 2009/2010. Retrieve from Accessed on March 16,

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