2008 COMPLETED PROJECTS
University of Canterbury - Dr. Robert Dempster, Intervet/Schering-Plough
At the University of Canterbury, students and staff got a unique look at success and failure in the biotechnology industry from Dr. Robert Dempster, Regulatory Affairs and New Product Development Manager for Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health Ltd. He was invited to the University by Dr. Gabriel Visnovsky, lecturer in the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering (CAPE).
Dr. Dempster gave two lectures into the frame of the course Bioprocess Engineering 2, using recent examples of his work as case studies. He also gave a two-hour open seminar for the Bioprocess Engineering students and CAPE on “Product Development: Using the Stage-GateTM best practices to maximise your chance of success”.
“I was pleased to be able to share real life experiences of biotechnological technology transfer and product development with the students and staff,” he says. “My role was to try and give the students some insight into the things that can go wrong (and right) when developing biotechnological products.”
Dr. Dempster added a human dimension to biotechnology and emphasised the importance of good business practice. He impressed on the students that without quality input from professionals in management, finances, regulations, sales and marketing, even the best ideas can flounder.
“We often hear about successes,” he points out, “but rarely do people share the errors that they made and how would they change things if they had the opportunity.”
His input was enthusiastically received, as shown by feedback collected from the students. “All the lectures were well organised and Robert communicated his ideas and information clearly,” one student wrote. “The notes were very good and it was easy to follow him.”
“Robert’s visit was excellent,” Dr. Visnovsky agrees. “We all enjoyed his lecturing style and learnt about ‘real life’ problems when transferring knowledge and technology from the ideal world of an academic lab environment to the real company-manufacturing world.”
Dr. Dempster also met with Dr. Visnovsky to advise him on a project to mass-produce vaccines from fish cell lines cultivated in bioreactors. Dr. Dempster gave him useful information and put him in contact with industry experts on fish vaccines production.
“Robert made suggestions that led me to make different assumptions in my original thoughts, particularly on the economics side and on the steps to be undertaken to develop a product from my ideas,” Dr. Visnovsky says. “While there is still a long way to go, I may say that my project might find a potential sponsor in Robert’s company.
