Tech Transfer Talk

Ep 58 - Bringing Products to Market with Jarett Abramson

I had the great pleasure of catching up with Jarett Abramson, who was 'between gigs' since his departure from Provivi and his imminent (and arguably eminent) commencement at BASF in Europe. The journey started for Jarett with writing patents on cranberry juice extract and we explored how that path to market unfolded. In his private practice, he found himself working across a number of industry sectors, but fate kept bringing him back to the ag industry. When moving from the private firm to private sector (being initially Dow Pharma then Dow Agrosciences, the latter now part of Corteva Agriscience), he reflected on the change in culture. Even at this early stage of his journey, technology transfer and 'learning through the role' became apparent. We touched on the idea of a 'traditional path' in technology transfer, quickly noting that there isn't really a definition and different experiences are key. Jarett then moved from Indianapolis to Mexico City in changing roles from private sector to NGO at CIMMYT. While the same underpinning objective is 'bringing products to the marketplace', Jarett noted that there are very few 'silver bullets' in agriculture. He shared some of his experiences in contrasting the private and public sector tech transfer environments and objectives. Jarett then shared his continuing journey in public sector ag & food tech transfer in his move to COO at Agriculture Victoria Services. In reflecting on the change, it reinforced how important relationships are through the world of tech transfer and the need to 'understand the business in order to move forward'. We spent some time discussing risk from the perspective of an attorney within a business. While exploring his preferred risk framework, Jarett noted that the hardest thing is remembering what the risks are and in turn, the importance of active risk registers, concluding that in order to be successful you have to take risk. Jarett re-entered the private sector in moving back to Los Angeles with Provivi and became a 'jack of all trades' through his new venture journey. We spent a little time specifically discussing patents and patent strategy in a new venture setting. Specifically, we contrasted big corporates with new ventures. Another area of tech transfer we spent some time exploring was product translation, understanding cost of goods sold (COGS) and the scale up journey. In agriculture the importance of local demonstrations was highlighted as results don't always translate between regions. We closed with Jarett reflecting on a few life lessons and setting the scene for his impending move to Europe.

Ep 57 - Science Meets Parliament 2026 - Science Meets the Economy: Opportunity and Risk with Jasmine Chambers and Steve Rodda

In our annual podcast leading into Science Meets Parliament, we had the opportunity to discuss innovation, tech transfer and research translation with Jasmine Chambers, Science & Technology Australia President and Professor Stephen Rodda, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Industry & Innovation) at UNSW. With STA building on their bench to boardroom initiatives with their new 'Science Meets the Economy' Program, Jas and Stephen shared their experiences and reflections with the Australian innovation system, and their respective journeys through research and translation. It was interesting to have Jas note that her early forays into translation were catalysed by frustration! In contrast Stephen shared his observations and experiences from his time in Boston and London. A question we spent some time discussing was where is industry to capitalise on the domestic innovation ecosystem – a theme that we have touched on through the podcast regularly over past months. Stephen reflected on lessons from the invention and subsequent acceleration of solar technology and how Australia can ensure that it captures more of the industry and research opportunities and associated value with emerging technologies. We had a great conversation around the role of private sector culture, the role, or lack of role, for science and engineering in board and strategy decision making. This was contrasted with other countries, in particular Germany, where greater value is placed on these perspectives. It is the opportunity to build the presence of technology perspectives into strategy and decision-making that sits and the heart of improvements in productivity and economic complexity. These themes have been discussed with Greg Harper, Jane O'Dwyer and Catherine Livingstone amongst others. Jas identified language and communication as an important linker in building trust and value between different business communities – e.g. STEM, finance, marketing and perceptions how that lack of trust means risk and opportunity discussions become limited. Ultimately these connections are built through relationships and proximity.

Episode 56 - Khaki is the New Green and Resilience is the New Carbon with Jim Lane

In our first recorded abroad episode for 2026, I had the opportunity earlier this month to catch up in person with Jim Lane in Digestville, located in Key Biscayne, Florida. I hope that many of you recall that we catch up with Jim intermittently and since our last chat with him in November 2024, much has changed in the world of the biobased economy, and yet many themes remain the same! We firstly reflected on some major trends that are emerging, echoed in the title of this podcast. Jim observed how important the biobased economy is becoming in the corporate and national conversations around resilience, and that security and defence interests are also rising in the new products and distributed manufacturing pathways that biotechnologies and biobased products could provide. Given the current discussions in Australia around First Of A Kind (FOAK) manufacturing facilities, I was very keen to explore Jim's recent writings on this matter. We explored how government and industry play roles in the establishment of FOAK and Jim noted that how this is done is critical to ensuring that there aren't complications arising with SOAK (which I shall leave you all to interpret – or listen to the podcast). Jim also reflected on another concept closely associated with FOAK which is the establishment of normalcy, or persistence of the arising products. This gave me cause to reflect on the recent, and some might say ongoing, alt-meat market which grew, peaked and troughed and now regaining its feet, and how normalcy may have played a role in this sectors trip through the Dunning Kruger effect. The conversation then moved to FOAK and fuels (while alert to being mispronounced) and the importance of feedstock, revisiting our 'Sara Lee' feedstocks acronym from our conversation in November 2024. Sustainable, Affordable, Reliable, Available, Low carbon Extractable and Efficient feedstocks. We touched on the cost of feedstock as a percentage of variable cost and the need to demonstrate that it can be reliably accessed, and then Jim laid out quite a challenge from a SAF contracting perspective. In essence, the challenge is how to compete with the abundance of fossil feedstock and create renewable scale that meets market demand. To that end, Jim favours forestry as a preferred feedstock, with its well understood supply chains and production systems, but he also noted the need for oxygen removal from biocrude and price at the refinery gate to be near fossil prices. I suggested that in an ideal world, with unlimited fats, oils and greases, we would favour the HEFA pathway. We then reflected on the Alcohol-To-Jet (ATJ) pathway, touching back on the FOAK challenge. Discussing the importance of technology guarantees and how to manage this in the absence of a balance sheet, I raised the example of the DuPont 1,3 PDO Sorona technology, launched some 15 years back and a journey we discussed with Ray Miller in Episode 3. Jim noted that integration and dependencies need to last a long time, and industry stability as a factor, alongside policy stability. Turning back to chemicals, Jim shared the view that flatter supply chains are more likely to adopt biobased or novel chemistry. Jim very kindly reflected on the 'complexity law' that I have floated for the past few years and contended that these flatter supply chain successes bore this rule of thumb out. Reflecting on biopolymers, we observed that the sustainability benefits are typically much smaller than operational benefits—sustainability can be strong but hard to operationalise. We close out our conversation with a little soothsaying, and while uncertainty will likely dominate the coming year the biobased economy needs corporate strength, not technology strength while working on a stronger positioning that reframes price, value and consequence. Jim's final metaphor of the leaf on the ocean seemed very apt given the focus on biobased economy.

Episode 55 - 2025 National Innovation Policy Forum Review: Coordination and Translation with Jane O'Dwyer

Following the National Innovation Policy Forum (NIPF) in November 2025, I had the opportunity to reflect on the event with Jane O'Dwyer from Cooperative Research Australia (CRA) in mid-December. We started with the raison d'être of the NIPF to increase the linkages between industry, the innovation system and policymakers. To this end, as patrons of NIPF, David Thodey and Catherine Livingstone have been catalysing the thinking over the past few years as the conversations and ambitions of NIPF evolved. The NIPF to date has moved from describing the problems to seeking how government and industry shape innovation policy and looking to ways to improve technology transfer, commercialisation and translation. When we recorded, there was great anticipation that SERD would offer insights in to how the federal government will respond to these opportunities. John Howard set the scene chairing the first session, noting that a "list of priorities isn't a market". He, Elanor Huntington, Jane Fitzpatrick and Marcus Dawe explored policy and industry perspectives in the 'Turning Missions to Markets' session. Jane and I spent some time reflecting on the 'First Of A Kind' (FOAK) challenges that Marcus introduced to the forum, discussing FOAK anywhere vs FOAK in Australia and the role of government as a first customer. Roy Green chaired a conversation with Linda Scott and Jasmina Joldic on system coordination. We hear from both Linda and Jasmina on the podcast; Linda sharing the concept of an 'Innovation Accord' to try to resolve some of the innovation system complexities that have emerged at the government–industry–innovation system interface; Jasmina reflected on the need to declutter and move the focus to outcomes and impact. The third and final session discussed Innovation as a driver for productivity. Jane and I reflected on the Harrison.ai story and its journey from domestic incubation to offshore commercialisation. Annette Schmiede, Adriano Di Pietro and Cori Stewart joined me on this panel touching on local manufacturing and the role of 'Original Equipment Manufacturers' in stimulating demand for innovation. Jane and I further reflected on the challenge of not wanting to constrain organisations growing, yet needing or wanting to find ways to keep these growing companies domiciled in Australia. This is part of the broader 'domestic demand side problem' for innovation and we talked of how 'moving the cheese' and focusing on major areas (or missions, flagships, BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) or other suitable names) could act as a catalyst to aligning domestic demand with domestic innovation. We closed the podcast with Jane Fitzpatrick offering what I feel is a compelling summary of why tech transfer matters and the opportunities that investment and partnering with people with these skills present.

Episode 54 - Innovation As Central to Sustainability, Not Just Productivity with Greg Harper

In this episode, I had the opportunity to chat with Greg Harper, a longstanding colleague and friend, who has been on the tech transfer and commercialisation journey for many years. In this conversation Greg shares some of his experience and perspectives following his time at CSIRO, as a board member at Meat and Livestock Australia, senior leadership roles within the Agriculture Victoria and, most recently, at University of Melbourne. Greg shared some of his early journey into technology transfer from his post doc at the National Institute of Health, Uppsala University and CSIRO, where he became involved in market orientated science, and the development and delivery of products to market, in a broad collaboration led by Professor John Hopwood, that created enzyme-replacement therapies for children suffering from mucopolysaccharidosis. We quickly turned our discussion to more contemporary issues in the Australian innovation system, reflecting on the recent economic roundtable and calls for improved productivity (which we have discussed on some of our other recent podcasts). We discussed the notion that there is an over representation of research but relative under representation on translation in the local innovation and productivity discourse. This line of thinking connects back to the discussion with Catherine Livingstone in Episode 50 and the National Innovation Policy Forum Prequel podcast with Catherine and David Thodey in Episode 53. We explored how tech transfer has "fallen through the gaps" in Australia, with the Productivity Commission setting it aside for SERD to address, and the rise of a startup ecosystem that may be a proxy for externalising tech transfer from research institutions. Greg, with some insight from his daughter, then introduced the broader notion of innovation as central to sustainability—not just productivity. This invited some reflections on what sustainability means as a central tenent of innovation. I started reflecting on Victor Pantano's recent observations that there is international demand for Australian innovation and asked Greg why that demand isn't appearing locally. Greg thinks this is a networking and relationship challenge more than an alignment problem and that research and industry are not communicating in similar languages. We spent some time, given our shared interest and experience in the bioeconomy and agrifood, reflecting on the communication and alignment challenges around bringing digital and biophysical innovations to market. Patience was discussed as a missing ingredient in the domestic private sector (or innovation demand side), and contrasted this with the longer term, patient funding that can be found in other jurisdictions. We touched on venture in Ag, noting this was an in-depth discussion with Roger Wyse earlier this year. Greg and I then reflected on role of the board and strategy following the article that we published through the Acton Institute last month, exploring the important role that the board should play in setting the culture and risk appetite. While we had discussed this with Anne-Marie Perret for new ventures, we focussed this discussion on the role of established companies and their boards, and two lenses for boards to use—the growth and opportunity lens and its link to the governance, regulation and compliance lens. We explored the question of how a board gets a contemporaneous measure on risk appetite and profile. Greg then reflected on his experiences at MLA and the commercialisation of VIAscan, an automated carcase digitisation and assessment technology developed through MLA investments, and the board processes associated with taking risk for long-term industry benefit. We explored this as an example of the importance of complementary technology, disruptors, timing and patience in bringing a technology to market. I asked Greg about the role of boards and management teams in building absorptive capacity and how this ties back to the risk culture. Greg suggested that we are demographically challenged in that the younger we are, then higher risk appetite we might have. Greg brought this to life through an ag-production lens and the importance of regions and community in setting a culture of innovation and risk taking. We closed out our discussion around Greg's sabbatical with Professor Soren Salomo at the Technical University Berlin, and reflecting on NorVic Foods— the team led by Lisa Birrell, and how ecosystems form and are assessed.