Building an Innovation Ecosystem at Oxford University

In this episode, David Washburn talks with Dr. Mairi Gibbs, CEO of Oxford University Innovation, about how Oxford approaches commercialization, company creation, and ecosystem development.

Mairi shares her path from chemist to CEO and reflects on how university tech transfer has evolved—from traditional licensing to a broader model of knowledge exchange that includes entrepreneurship, consultancy, and social impact. She discusses Oxford’s approach to building a steady pipeline of spinout companies, the role of capital and talent, and how partnerships like Oxford Science Enterprises have helped accelerate growth.

The conversation also explores how Oxford supports researchers through early-stage development and the role universities play in driving long-term economic growth.

Host: David Washburn and Jeff Wesley
Guests: Dr. Mairi Gibbs, CEO, Oxford University Innovation
Producers: Jenna McNamara and Doug Snitgen
Music: "Devil on Your Shoulder" by Will Harrison, licensed via Epidemic Sound

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Transcript

Introduction and Guest Overview

David Washburn 0:03

I'm excited for you to hear about my conversation today with Dr. Mairi Gibbs. He is the CEO of Oxford University Innovation in the UK where she has been since 2002. She is in charge of the whole commercialization apparatus and economic development , that includes partnership management, formation of spinout companies, licensing, academic outreach, patent portfolio management, the whole nine yards. I hope you enjoy this interview.

David Washburn 0:45

Welcome to the MSU Research Foundation podcast. Today I have the pleasure of a conversation with Dr. Mairi Gibbs, a colleague who is the CEO of Oxford University Innovation in the UK, where she has been since 2002. OUI. Welcome, Mairi.

Mairi Gibbs 1:06

Thank you very much. It's great to be here.

David Washburn 1:08

OUI is very similar to some of the things that we do, designed to uh to help the university uh do a whole bunch of things around tech commercialization and economic development. So uh really excited to visit with you and and hear about um how you approach things at at OUI. So maybe before we get into the the meat of it, um I know you've been there a while. Maybe you could give a little background on um on you. Uh I know you're a uh you were a scientist at one point, probably not a practicing scientist anymore, but maybe a little bit more on your background and and how you got to where you are.

From Chemist to CEO at Oxford

Mairi Gibbs 1:45

Yeah, so that you're absolutely right. Originally a a chemist by background. Um so I did my first degree actually in Oxford. Um I was at New College and then did a PhD and I spent a few years in industry running a team of industrial chemists. Um, but then I came into this world of technology transfer in 2002 to work for the business that was then called ISIS Innovation. Um, and so in the first instance, I was what we would now call a licensing and ventures manager. Um, I was working with the academics on the classic business of protecting, filing IP, seeking licensees, creating spin-out companies. Um, and so that was what I'm slightly horrified to find is nearly 24 years ago. Um I I'm in my sixth job over that time. Um I'm progressively in the same place. Yeah. Uh so I know the world of Oxford tech transfer really well from a whole variety of different perspectives, but I have never done this at another institution. So it gives me a particular perspective, let's put it that way. Um, so I I was in those sort of commercial licensing venture creation roles for a while. Um, I ran a team, I moved sideways into operations, I was head of operations for quite a long time, then chief operating officer, and then latterly the last couple of years, chief executive.

Evolution of Technology Transfer

David Washburn 3:02

Oh, fantastic. Yeah, it's interesting because I think I got into this racket, this business about the same time uh as the result of the the dot-com crash. I had I had been with several um venture-backed startup companies, the last of which um took a big nosedive, and uh we had to wind that one up. And um and so I I started by doing um consulting in in the licensing space. And I thought I would do that for a short period of time and then get back into industry. Same amount of time, 25 years later, here we are, right?

Mairi Gibbs 3:36

Yeah, I I came with a three-year plan in the first instance, so that didn't go so well, perhaps.

David Washburn 3:42

I think what's been uh fun for me and probably you as well is just how these organizations and and how universities have evolved the business of of you know sort of invention disclosure, protect, market, license to to building out a whole bunch of other suites of practices um along the way. And I'm sure that's been the case at OUI.

Mairi Gibbs 4:07

Yes, it has absolutely evolved um dur during that time. And the the spread of activities that we need to do for the university has definitely grown. Um, but you know, in Oxford, we've always been very involved in um what we would now call ecosystem building, um, trying to create that economic growth environment around the university. And we've always had to be quite hands-on in terms of our practical support for entrepreneurship. Um it hasn't been the case in the UK that we've had all of the sort of venture builders and um entrepreneurs and investors proactively coming into the university historically. We're starting to see that now. Um, but historically, if an academic needed support to see how their thing could be turned into the basis of a business, it was OUI that was providing that support. Um, so the the world has moved on, the the language has moved on as well. Um, to start off with, it was all you know, technology transfer, which is number one, all technology, where now we talk about broader, uh the much broader field of knowledge exchange. OUI serves across all of the four divisions of the university, including social sciences and humanities, and including our wonderful gardens, libraries, and museums, if they have anything interesting as well. So breadth is hugely different. Um, we're supporting social enterprise creation, um, we support consultancy. We are much more explicit about how it's it's all about the impact. Um, it's a two-way process of partnering. Um, so the the world has moved on quite a lot, I think.

Growth in Company Creation and Spinouts

David Washburn 5:36

Yeah, I agree with that. Um bunch of um of terms that we use quite often uh here in our shop and um you know with many colleagues across uh the country here. So I I wonder if if you know you could talk about a little bit of the company creation side. I was perusing your your last annual report and it's certainly been busy in the last uh decade or plus. Yeah, we're we're really busy. Yeah.

Mairi Gibbs 6:03

Yeah, we're really busy. And you know, Oxford is a huge and diverse research institution, so we have this wonderful, rich source of ideas and innovations um as our our feedstock, if you like. Um, but we've we've had a real uh focus towards entrepreneurship, and that's been a very deliberate move by the university over the last 10 or 15 years. Um, and it was really catalyzed in 2015 when Oxford um signed its partnership with the entity called Oxford Science Enterprises, which is our investment partner, and they've raised close to a billion dollars now as a um campus-facing investment fund dedicated to um to spin-outs from Oxford. They they can also invest in other startups from our region, but they've absolutely got that geographic locus in in Oxfordshire. Um, and the availability of capital that that has brought in really catalyzed creation of a lot of companies. We, over the space of sort of 2015-2016, as that money came into um into action, our spin-out rate went up from sort of eight-ish per year up to 20 plus per year. Um, I think we tripled in a 12-month period. So that that was an entertaining time in the office for sure. Um, and the you know, the rates have stabilized now at a steady sort of 20 per year, which is a mixture of venture-backed companies, um, some lean startups or student startups, some social enterprises.

Oxford Science Enterprises and the Role of Capital

David Washburn 7:32

Yeah. And is that organization separate from yours or is it uh is it part of your organization?

Mairi Gibbs 7:40

We we do all of it. So we're a sort of full spectrum technology transfer office um rather than just a pure play tech licensing office.

David Washburn 7:48

Yeah, but the is it OSI, the investment arm? Is that is that part of your organization or is that a separate.

Mairi Gibbs 7:54

They're not OSE is a separate legal entity. Um so the yeah, the the university has a minority stake in them, and then they they're entitled. The quid pro quo is um that they receive some of the university's founding equity in each of the spin-out companies. But they're a separate, separate entity, they have their own shareholders, they raise um raise their money and invest off their balance sheet.

David Washburn 8:14

Yeah, fantastic. And and that I think is part of the the game too, is sort of we and many Midwestern US universities as as they um try to drive more startup companies, the question is always sort of where do you find the talent and where do you find the capital? And I think m many of us are also doing similar things where we're we're we're building sort of early stage funding mechanisms so that they don't have to run off to the coasts or you know, run off to the big cities right away. They may eventually get there anyway. Um but having having that early, early money and early support is is kind of key, and it sounds like it has been with you as well.

Talent, Capital, and Building Companies

Mairi Gibbs 8:57

Yeah, I I think the the capital is enabling for sure. Um but then you're absolutely right that shortly behind the capital you also need to have the talent um in order to drive these businesses forward. Um but it is much easier to get great people if you have the ability to pay them.

David Washburn 9:13

Right, right. I know you don't want to isolate a uh a favorite company since you have so many of them, but are there any that stand out recently that um are worth noting here, knowing that that you've got lots of great ones there?

Notable Exits and Impact Stories

Mairi Gibbs 9:27

Yeah, so we've we've formed over the last 25 years, we've formed well over 300 companies. Um and the the live portfolio is about 200 and something right now. Um and of course, we have some that have left for great reasons because they've been bought, um, and occasionally some go bust, and then there's a a rich um portfolio of live companies that are somewhere on their growth trajectory. Um but the tip the two that I can highlight, we've had two fantastic exits over the last um six months. Uh, our company Oxidionics, which is active in the quantum computing space, was bought by the US company INQ PLC for, excuse me, that they might be Inc. rather than PLC, that's UK language. Um, INQ anyway, um, for just over a billion dollars. Um, and shortly after that, our spin-out company Organox was bought by Terumo Corporation for 1.5 billion, um which is amazing. And Organox is really spectacular technology, it's a device for um supporting livers prior to transplantation. Um, and it's in use by Mayo Clinic in the in the US, it's um has regulatory approval in the UK and in across Europe. There's 8,000 livers transplanted worldwide and rising by about 10 a day. Um, so it's a fantastic impact story as well as a fantastic economic story. Um, and it was a long, a long growth to exit that one, but we're super proud of them.

David Washburn 10:53

And and are those companies or others in the portfolio, are they able to stay in the Oxfordshire area, or do they do they tend to run off to London or other other cities in the UK to sort of grow and and and build their organizations? How does it play out?

Keeping Companies Connected to the Region

Mairi Gibbs 11:13

Um so a lot of them do stay local, 80 plus percent stay local. Um our two big exits that I was just talking about, both of them have kept a commitment to retain their R&D in Oxford. So we've still got um real estate footprint, hundreds of employees in in Oxford um working on those important technologies. Um, some do migrate, of course, some are based in London where they particularly need to be next to the financial services industry, for example. Some end up on the West Coast or the East Coast for access to those markets. Um, but oftentimes they do retain at least some links in in our local region, which we're really happy about.

David Washburn 11:50

Yeah, yeah. That that sounds about how it it tends to play here, is is is the same. Some of them move on but retain retain a small shop to be close to the founding faculty member or perhaps a a pipeline of grad students, but also need to to find other areas to find different types of talent, sales, marketing, business development types.

Mairi Gibbs 12:14

Exactly. And you know, we we talk a lot about what we can do to make them sticky to our region, and it's to do with those networks, those relationships into the university, to do with the support and the lovely environment that we have in our region. It's a really nice place to live.

David Washburn 12:30

Yeah.

Mairi Gibbs 12:30

Um, so all of these different things go to helping with decisions, but ultimately a company needs to grow, and oftentimes they're able to best grow by being close to their markets. And if the big market is not in the UK, then they're gonna have to do what they have to do. Yeah.

David Washburn 12:45

You're right, it is a nice place to live. In fact, I um I I used to live there from 92 to 94, a long, long time ago. Oh, great. Yeah. I was helping um I was helping a software company um expand in Europe and and um we we set the company up outside of Oxford in um in Long Hanborough. So uh got to spend uh spend two years there and lived in Summertown and um really enjoyed my time. I have to admit though, the last time I was in Oxford, I did not recognize there was there was so much growth and there was so many new things, which is hard, hard to say. It's like I don't I did couldn't even recognize the place.

Mairi Gibbs 13:22

Um Yeah, well well the um medieval heart of the city is almost unchanged. That's true.

David Washburn 13:27

Um that's true.

Mairi Gibbs 13:28

It's it's got less friendly to cars, um, but that makes it more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists, um which is which is a nice thing. Um but there's uh you know a huge expansion in innovation and business space around the outskirts.

David Washburn 13:41

Yep, that's right, that's right. And I I did notice that. Um I was curious if you could talk about some of the um the services that that your office provides, you know, from from the time you do a disclosure and figure out a plan to you know, before first money comes in. There's a whole bunch of that in that valley of death, so to speak. You know, where lots of things can go wrong or lose momentum. And I was curious how OUI provides um services along along that route, that critical route, um, what types of things you're doing there.

Supporting Researchers Through Early-Stage Development

Mairi Gibbs 14:19

Sure. Um so so we have a a dedicated person who's responsible for each one and manages the relationship with the researcher, which is super important. Um, and that relationship will will stay through the whole of that pathway. Um so we'll be looking at the invention disclosure and assessing it, of course, for protection and commercial merit, commercial pathway. We'll be thinking about the development needs, what the what's the um the pathway, the key key milestones? What are the what are the things that need to be proven to make it fail fast if that's gonna be the pathway, or that need to be demonstrated in order to make it credible to uh a company partner or to an investor? Um, so we'll be thinking about it quite commercially from the very beginning. Um, yes, it's interesting academically, but why is that useful out there in the world and who's gonna pay for this and how are they gonna pay for it? All of those questions. Um, we support the researchers with finding that translational funding. We're really fortunate that we have um what we call a university challenge seed fund, which is able to provide that um little nuggets of proof of concept funding for the first demonstrators, whatever that might be.

David Washburn 15:29

Fantastic.

Mairi Gibbs 15:29

Um, so so we so we manage that. Um and you know, sometimes these things go quick and sometimes these things go slow, don't they? Um but we're we're there through the you know, trying to market and learning from those conversations and repositioning and having the first conversations with investors and oh, you want to think about it like that? Okay, well, what what do we then need to do? Um, so it's a a process of constant iteration, but hopefully leading to a deal. And we do get to a deal in about a third of our disclosures, which we're pretty proud of.

Investor Networks and Co-Investment Growth

David Washburn 16:00

Great, that's great, fantastic. Over time, have other investment shops um sprung up in the Oxford area, uh other other venture firms or other other folks um that are sort of looking for uh looking for deal flow or looking for opportunities, uh or is it primarily uh the firm you mentioned earlier?

Mairi Gibbs 16:24

OSE. Um so that there's always been a number of venture firms active in the Oxford area, so they've carried right on and we have great relationships with them. Um so OSE has definitely um opened the minds of some investors from further afield, perhaps. If if there's something there that's that interesting to raise that sort of money for, maybe we should come and take a look. Um so what what we've actually found is that since um the initiation of the OSE partnership, actually the amounts of money raised from other investors went up, not down. Um and over the sort of 10 years of that partnership, um, they've brought in two or three hundred other investors as co-investors um to come in along alongside them. So we found that actually having the campus-facing fund has brought a lot of investor focus. They've brought some capital directly, but they've also amplified um through generating interest from other investors, yeah. Some of whom are domiciled here and some of whom aren't.

David Washburn 17:26

Yeah, that's great. You know, one of the things that always um is interesting to me about sort of the some of the UK models for for this type of activity is that you do a lot of work in in helping on the consulting side. Um

Consultancy as a Pathway to Impact

David Washburn 17:42

Yes, we do.

Mairi Gibbs 17:42

Yeah, yeah.

David Washburn 17:43

And um, you know, the US universities tend not to uh in their tech transfer office get too involved in in that. But I wondered if you could you could comment on on um sort of how OUI helps faculty with consulting opportunities.

Mairi Gibbs 17:59

Sure. Um so we are there to help support that sort of contracting and delivery process with the outside client. Um and it it works really well, and we do it at quite a scale. Um, we executed nearly 700 consultancy contracts last year.

David Washburn 18:15

Wow.

Mairi Gibbs 18:15

Um so it's it's a reasonable scale of operation. Um the academics are able to choose whether they come to us or not, so we have to win their business through good service. Um in Oxford, the um the rule is that the the academics can use up to 30 days across the academic year in outside appointment time without any loss of of salary. And there's flexibility beyond that if they um ask the right questions and have a conversation about it. So, of course, they're able to use that time for technical consultancy or for scientific advisory board work or sometimes expert witness type work, a whole range of different types of um of activity, but always about expertise, not about research, not about intellectual property. So we we have a really clear delineation about what can go down the consultancy pathway versus what should probably be a research contract or an IP license. Um, but then we'll we'll sit there between the academic and the client. For the client, it means that they they know that they're dealing with somebody who is used to dealing with contracts, who can handle invoicing, they've got one point that they can be in touch with for timesheeting and all of that sort of organizational type type stuff. Um for the academic, it means they benefit from the university's um public liability insurance. They've got one person that they've got a long-term relationship with to work with, um, to build up that relationship with. Um and you know, sometimes the academic will come to us saying, you know, I want to do X with company Y, can you make it happen? And we'll just take it from there. Sometimes the company will come to us saying, We're looking for some expertise in a particular field, can you find me somebody? So it goes both ways around. But the the function that we fulfill to sit as the um administrative managerial contracting body between the client and the academic is always the same. And it works really super well. Um, one benefit of it from the university's point of view is it enables us to count it because we're required to report the number of consultancy interactions to the government as part of our annual return. Um, and when the academics are all doing their own, it's pretty difficult to aggregate that information.

David Washburn 20:28

Absolutely. Yeah, what a great service. And um, it just feels like a win-win all around for the faculty, for the company, uh, for you all. Um Yeah, I hope so.

Mairi Gibbs 20:39

And you know, it's a really great pathway to impact, and often it leads to or is part of a broader interaction. Quite often there will be license transaction on the IP with consultancy alongside so they've got the expertise to make the technology work. A spin-out company is always a consulting story as well as a licensing story. Um sometimes the consultancy will lead to a relationship that ends up producing sponsored research into the academics group. So it's um from my point of view, it's really uh one of the the key levers, the key mechanisms that we've got for building these relationships and and giving good pathways to to impact. And the impact can be really material. We have um one example that we use where um it was some researchers from psychiatry that were able to report on women's experiences of pain, and they did a really long-standing consultancy with one of their uh pain medication manufacturers here, the brand called Neurofen. Um and it it played directly into the way that they were positioning their pain medication to women. Um so it it does work.

The Oxford–Cambridge Growth Corridor

David Washburn 21:47

That's great. Well, I know your time is limited. I have one more question if you don't mind. Um I was curious, you know, I've read a little bit about the Oxford to Cambridge corridor and it Felt like um this was uh an initiative by um the UK government as well as sort of um folks in Oxford and Cambridge to try to continue to build up the the research corridor, but also to use it as a uh a mechanism to drive more economic development, so to speak. So I I just wondered if you could comment on that and maybe perhaps your office's involvement in that or how how you see that uh playing out. I know these things are typically long-term um uh objectives, but it but it was a really interesting read to to see and and read about that.

Mairi Gibbs 22:38

Yes, so the um Oxford-Cambridge Corridor as a notion has come and gone through various governments in various different different names, but it's um on a resurgence at the moment. Um and this government and the last government, the the origins of it, is really about the government's recognition of the role of our great universities in the UK in driving economic growth. Um, they are looking to university spin-outs to provide the the basis for the new high-growth, high-value manufacturing industries that are going to take the UK into the future. Um and the places that you perhaps want to focus on are the places that do it great already, where you've got this huge body of academic prowess, um, not just with Oxford and Cambridge, but with the London universities as well. So that there's been much talk about the Golden Triangle. Um, but from an infrastructure point of view, um, if you ever tried to travel from Oxford to Cambridge, which is about the distance from one end to the other of the Bay Area, right, is really not that far. Um but it's stupendously difficult. There's no direct train. Um, the road is full of roundabouts, it's quite laborious. If you try and do it by bus, it will take you an eternity. So most times, if you want to do it without you driving around the roundabouts, you have to go into London and back out again. Um, so it's more like a V than a triangle. So there's an opening across the crucial um connectivity. So part of the Oxford Cambridge Growth Corridor is about transport, um, but it's it's not about transport just for the sake of role roads and railways, it's about connectivity of research, it's about connectivity of economic activity, um, so that it becomes possible to live in Milton Keynes but come and work in innovative growth companies that are at the Oxford end or the Cambridge end, so that the whole economic uh activity and growth of our region is a bit more capable of being connected and a bit less isolated than it was before. Um, so it's receiving attention from government, funding from government. Um, they're thinking hard about um what needs to be done at the Cambridge end and at the Oxford end and the in-betweeney bits to really foster economic growth, and everyone's pretty focused on it right now.

Closing Remarks

David Washburn 25:00

Wow, that's so exciting. Well, what a great introduction to OUI. My guest today has been Dr. Mairi Gibbs. She is the CEO of Oxford University Innovations in the UK, where she has been since 2002. Mairi, thank you so much for spending time with us. It's great to learn about what our colleagues and friends are doing in the UK at one of the greatest universities, uh, not only in the UK, but in the entire planet. So fun to hear about this. Thank you.

Mairi Gibbs 25:30

Well, thank you, and it's lovely to talk to you.