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Welcome to Oxford+, the podcast series that explores the myths and truths of the Oxford investing landscape hosted by Susannah de Jager. Since moving to Oxford, Susannah has collaborated with experts, entrepreneurs, and government to shape the conversation around domestic scale-up capital. Oxford+ aims to inform, inspire, and connect. We'll talk to Founders, investors, academics, politicians, and facilitators and explore how Oxford is open for business.
Welcome to Oxford Plus, the podcast series
that takes you deep into the myths and
truths of the Oxford investing landscape.
I'm your host, Susannah de
Jager, and I've spent over 15
years in UK asset management.
My guest today is Dave Norwood.
Dave graduated from Keeble College,
Oxford, with a degree in modern history
and went into investment banking.
He has founded and been a director
of numerous UK technology companies
including Oxford Nanopore, Proxy
Imogen, Synergen, 4D Pharma, Index
IT, Evolution Group and Aura Capital.
Dave is also the founder of IP Group
PLC and Oxford Science Innovation,
now Oxford Science Enterprises,
the largest university venture
fund globally, which has brought in
over 1.5 billion of investment into
Oxford since its inception in 2015.
Dave is also a grandmaster in chess
and has represented both England
and Andorra internationally.
Without Dave, much of the investment
landscape of Oxford would not look
how it does today, and so I'm looking
forward to hearing his thoughts
and predictions as to what will and
should change over the next 10 years.
Dave, thank you so much for joining today.
You're very welcome.
It's nice to be here.
Wonderful.
So, going back a few
years now, you set up OSI.
I'd love to know what it was
you identified that precipitated
the need to set up OSI, Oxford
Science Innovation, as it then was.
That's a good question, sadly
we'll have to go back a few more
years, I'm actually quite old.
So probably better we start
further back because it then
will hopefully make more sense.
It really goes back to when I arrived
at Oxford a long time ago, 1988, and
I read history, everyone assumes I
read chemistry but I read history,
chemistry was too difficult for me.
I was surprised when I saw that.
I'll be honest, I'm one of those people.
Yeah.
I did sort of make friends with
quite a few sort of scientists,
particularly when I also have a
background in chess and most chess
players are good at maths or science.
So again, they don't tend to be historians
and I kind of kept in touch with these
people after I'd left Oxford, and I sort
of stumbled into the world of finance,
so I really didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't really want to
do it, if I'm honest.
But what interested me was going back
to Oxford, seeing my friends who were
going to do these research projects in
various areas, and more and more, you
know, we'd be in the pub and I'd be
like, so what are you planning to do?
Oh, I want to build this machine, or I've
got this idea for a computer game, or...
and I just love to hear their
stories and then they'd be like,
well, if only we could find £50,000,
we could build a prototype and
so I'm like, well, you know what?
And I've always been
a reasonable salesman.
So I sort of went.
and got some of the rich people I knew
to just, in finance to put some money
into these early ideas in Oxford.
So it was a complete accident and
they didn't even go particularly well.
But you know, I remember one
guy introducing me to his tutor.
He said, my tutor can't believe
you've raised this money.
He wants to, he really wants to meet you.
So I met him and he was a sort of very
eminent professor and then he started
telling me more and more stories and
about ideas in Oxford that there were
and he invited me to a dinner and it was
actually a seminal moment in my life.
I got invited to a dinner and I'm going
back now to probably about 1997 and it's a
very odd story actually because a few days
before I actually got bitten by a snake.
That is not what I expected you to say.
Yeah, I know, that was it.
What kind of snake?
Yeah, it was an adder, I'd been for lunch
in the Ashdown forest with a couple of
friends and we'd gone for a walk after.
That's spectacularly unlucky.
Well, it wasn't unlucky because I saw
this adder and I was fascinated by
snakes, so I gently trod on its tail.
Yeah, looking back it was a silly thing
to do, but I gently trod on its tail
and then started stroking its neck.
No you didn't!
I did, and then it turned around and bit
me, and it was pretty horrific because
the blood sort of spurted out, but I
thought it was a grass snake anyway,
so I wasn't particularly worried, it
was only when my arm started to throb.
Anyway, we went back to the hotel
where we'd had the lunch and I told
them I'd been bitten why one of the
snakes in their garden and the guy
went paler than me and they rang for
an ambulance and rushed me to hospital.
I literally nearly died because
I had a terrible reaction,
spent almost a week in hospital.
So I got out of hospital
and I had my arm in a sling.
So this professor had actually invited
me to a High Table lunch at Queen's
and I was ringing him to say I can't
go, I've been bitten by a snake and
I'm still not feeling very well, and
I rung him and he was like, Oh, I'm so
pleased you rang me, you're going to
meet this professor who's brilliant,
he's an amazing inventor, he'd love to
meet you and I didn't have the heart
to say, well, actually I'm not coming.
So I thought well sod it, I'll
just go, right, how bad can it be?
As usual, like really enjoying myself,
we had a lovely meal at High Table,
lots of nice wine and then port and
anyway, I was with my friend who's
Professor Pete Dobson, who actually
built Begbroke really, was his project.
But he introduced me to this
lovely old guy called Professor
Alan Hill, who obviously noticed
that my arm was in a sling.
So I told him the story of the snake and I
thought, what's odd is I thought I'd have
built some kind of immunity to being...
I've been bitten by like lots of things
like mosquitoes and stuff in my life and
he goes, no, it's the opposite, you know?
And so I learned, Oh, you must be a
chemist and you know, so he then started
telling me his story and his story
was unbelievably romantic and truly
inspirational and he told me about this
idea he'd had years and years ago, that
a way to sort of measure blood sugar
levels and a bit of me being nice, I
said so what's that useful for you know?
And he goes, well it's funny you
say that, at first that was my
thought, what is it useful for?
He said well it became useful when
we realised that with a sort of tiny
prick of someone's finger, you know,
you take a tiny amount of blood and
you can see what the glucose level is.
Which actually became a product
which has revolutionised diabetes.
So if you know any diabetics, their lives
have been transformed by the ability to
self test and it all came from Professor
Alan Hill's idea all those years ago
and I remember hearing about it and
I'm like, oh, that sounds interesting.
Why don't we create a company out of it?
And he said, well actually, he's a very
modest bloke, he said, well I would
have loved to have done that, but we
did create a company and we just sold
it for $890 million and I was like,
wow, and he said, well it's interesting
though, like, you know, no one in the
UK was particularly interested in it.
It was as usual, a US company and
you know, I'm like yeah, and I
said well there's probably a lot
of ideas like that in Oxford and he
goes, you just wouldn't believe it.
There were so many amazing ideas
that could change the world, change
people's lives and even make money.
But actually he wasn't driven by
the money, he was driven by the fact
that literally, you know, hundreds of
millions of people now around the world
have had their lives improved by...
and that in some ways was the beginning
of sort of self diagnostics, you know,
what we all got used to during COVID.
A lot of it can be traced back to Alan
Hill and the chemistry department.
So, at least it gives you context as
to why I was really interested and I
carried on doing, helping sort of spin
outs from Oxford on an ad hoc basis,
until I found out that they were trying
to build a new chemistry department.
So this is all at the end of
the 90s and they'd raised a lot
of money from charities, the
Wellcome Trust, the government.
But they were trying to build this brand
new, they wanted to build like the most
modern chemistry department in the world.
Oxford Chemistry is ranked top in
the world and they thought we need a
building that just looks fantastic.
But they were £20 million short.
So they came to me and said Dave,
you're good at raising money.
We've seen you raise money
for these little companies.
Why don't you raise us the
20 million pounds to help us
do the chemistry building?
So this is 1999 and I said, well
what about, what do I get in return?
And they looked at me as if like, well,
you don't know what you thought of that.
I said, well, here's an idea.
Why don't, in return for these £20
million, we would like to have a stake
in all the ideas that come out of that
department forever and they're like,
well, forever's a very long time.
That's not going to work.
So we hammered out a long, interesting
deal, which was basically, we would
share 50 50 with the university, the
stakes in the ideas that came out for
the next 15 years and we finally did
the deal in 2000, to go and raise £20
million and it meant Oxford were happy
because they got to build the state of
the art chemistry department which is
still there on South Parkes Road and we
then had 15 years to try and turn some of
the ideas into something that works and
hopefully recoup that 20 million pounds
and that was the beginning of IP group.
That was how IP group started
and it was a very unusual deal.
It's the first deal of its
kind and over those 15 years,
I've got to be honest, right?
There was lots of times where I thought,
my God, this is the most stupid deal.
Why on earth have I done this?
And I realised that if I just sort of
sat there and waited for the ideas to
come, they probably weren't going to come
and I wasn't going to get my money back.
So I sort of moved back to Oxford and
I literally spent every day, whether it
was taking a scientist to the coffee shop
or dragging them over to the pub to hear
their ideas in the chemistry department
because I thought we've really got to
work hard to make that stuff see the
light of day and conveniently, when that
ended, the IP group deal ended in 2015,
by this time I was long retired, right?
My friends were still running IP
group, I'm sure you've met them,
but I'd long retired, I was still in
touch with them, but only for catching
up over coffee or a glass of wine.
Oxford was saying, we've noticed that In
that 15 years, more ideas have come out
of the chemistry department, pretty much
all the other departments put together.
What was, why was that?
And I'm like, well because we cared,
we really had to try and make it work.
So that was how the idea of
Oxford Sciences came about.
It wasn't my idea, it was really a
continuation of an idea that we'd all
sort of had all those years ago and Oxford
said you know what, why don't we try and
do this experiment with every department?
So, we partner with Oxford, so rather
than an IP group, which obviously has done
deals with lots of universities, we just
want our own private commercialisation
vehicle, which we called OSI, it's now
called OSE, or Oxford Science Enterprises
and then we said, right, we're not going
to go out and raise 20 million this time,
we're going to be really ambitious and in
the end, well, in total, we've probably
raised about a billion and Oxford has got
the biggest, in effect, dedicated fund or
whatever you want to call it in the world.
But again, with the same mission that
goes back to that amazing dinner I
had after I'd been bitten by a snake,
which is find brilliant scientists
who've got ideas that can change the
world and help them do it, right?
And so in effect, lots has
changed, but nothing has changed.
That's really what we're trying to do.
Yeah that's exceptionally clear,
particularly the snake bite.
So that completely resonates with what
arguably one still sees a lot of today.
So my question to you would be, you
know, we still see a lot of companies,
arguably at the stage you're talking
about, still being sold to the US so,
we've got OSE and similar funds around
the UK now that have emulated the same
sort of structure and they're functioning
really well and yet, it still seems to be
the normal course, not without exception,
Oxford Nanopore being an example, but
that most companies ultimately end up
needing to take US money or listing on
the NASDAQ as a sort of default playbook
and so, do you with your experience,
see anything additionally that we can do
to change that as it's still evolving?
And I'll ask a different question
later rather than lead the witness.
Yeah, no, it literally is the key
question for me that I've wrestled
with all of my life, what you've asked
me, and I don't have the answers.
I still think it's a great shame that the
UK still does have incredible ideas and
yet we do not have the capital to allow
the best of those ideas to go forward and
it's no use trying to pretend that we have
and I've met with Prime Ministers, I've
met with different governments, every side
of the political spectrum, and they all
recognise that they've got to do something
about it and say they're going to do
something about it, but somehow something
happens It doesn't happen , so...
I don't know what you're talking about
Dave, I've never experienced this!
Must be some other government!
You know, they're all the same to me.
Nothing ever happens and it is kind
of tragic and I think because of that
there isn't this belief that can sort
of break this glass ceiling, you know...
It's self fulfilling.
Yeah.
I'm not of the mindset which is like,
selling these companies to Americans
or the Chinese or it's necessarily
a bad thing because what it does do
is it recycles capital, it's a great
learning experience, it's a great sort
of role model for people to do, right?
Well, they sold for $500 million, we
can do one better and sell for a billion.
So it's not all bad, and also when
companies get bought, you know, you get
your second generation entrepreneurs.
I mean, one young lad, I'm not going
to name him, one young lad who came
to work for me, you know, made a
hundred million dollars from his spin
out and you know, so he has created
a sort of role model here in Oxford
for someone who can do that, right?
You know, in my day, the only way you
could become rich was to go into the city.
So to me, I'm a historian, so I see things
in a very different, and these things
don't necessarily move fast, you know,
it's not a, but yeah, the government
still doesn't really do enough, we know
that, and it will talk a good game, and
if they are serious, and we, you know,
whatever we are post Brexit, we want
to be an IP based economy, we really
have to do some urgent work, right?
And like you say, you know, UK pension
funds, I've talked about it, I've sat
on the patient capital review, and
they're still not investing anything
like the amount we need to see this
stuff work and if we don't make this
stuff work, what has the UK got?
You know, there's a bit like, it's nice
to do this stuff because it's really
important to do things like cancer and we
saw the impact of the COVID vaccine that
came out of Oxford, which was amazing.
I was so sort of proud to be
involved in that in a small way.
So, you know, these things
are incredibly important.
They're also the future of our economy
and you know, even AI, I mean, you know,
AI, we could have an amazing role in the
AI world because Oxford is becoming a
hub for AI ideas and I worry that we're
going to miss that opportunity too.
And in your interactions with government,
when you've gone and sort of pleaded
the case, what do you think the best
intervention would be that they could do?
So I think there's actually two
really important things and to
some extent they're separate and
to some extent they're connected.
So I've looked at lots of US companies,
obviously, you know, people quote
so many success stories in the US.
What's interesting about a
lot of them is that they...
their first customers were actually
government departments, or some
kind, like, you know, so this
happens, and the Americans know how
to build companies, that's one thing
we can't deny they do well, right?
But a lot of them get this amazing
headstart where if they're doing
something really well, the government
falls over itself to make sure that
kind of, I won't call it soft money
because they've got it, but it goes
to them and they get their first
customers so they can prove it works.
They can get money and scale up and
it gives investors confidence and
actually, you know, just even in areas
like genomics where I've worked a lot,
obviously, I was chairman of Oxford
Nanopore in the early days, like you
know, the government come and see us
and say yeah, we really want to help,
but could we get contracts out of them?
So to me, you know, the NHS is this
unbelievable resource, but how much
does it really help UK startups?
It just is impossible.
So all this kind of value and where
we could make a difference to how
we don't and it's kind of weird,
we'd almost rather give contracts
to US companies than our own.
And by the way, you don't have
to spend money to do that.
I feel like that's an important memo
to anyone in government listening.
This won't cost you money.
This is a free solution.
it's almost like they're embarrassed
to give it to their own, which
like bit of like benign
nepotism would be a bad thing.
Well, the Americans have no qualms
about it and obviously now they're
like, well we won't even give
anything to China or anywhere else.
So like, so they have no qualms
about backing their right?
Because they believe in ideas, they
see the ideas create the world, right?
So it's like, so that
frustrates me, right, so that...
and maybe if people saw that the
government was more behind that, it'd be
easier to for instance, for pension funds
to say right, we're now going to commit
10 percent say, to UK startups because
we know, but you almost can't blame them
at times saying, well we don't want to
commit money because they're never going
to be given a chance by the government.
You know it becomes this vicious
cycle that needs to be broken.
So, you know, sorry, I
feel I'm rambling a bit...
I think it's spot on.
In 30 years, I've created probably
more spin outs than anyone ever and
that sounds like a boast and it's not
because most of them have gone wrong.
But I would say if at critical
moments we could have accessed the
contract, whether it's from even the
Ministry of Defence or the, you know,
would have been transformational.
And it's not a flat playing field and
that, you know, in my conversations,
much shorter dated rather than yours
with government, it was a bit bizarre
that you almost had this conversation
where they'd say, oh, well, you know, we
think it's a private sector problem and
you'd say, but it's not and the playing
field isn't even, and Silicon Valley,
lest we forget, was a defense project and
basically still is and the IRA, they're
just pumping money into, you know, all of
these spinouts and by the way, poaching
some of ours because great tax breaks and
you do go, to your point, if this is our
plan, and we've you know, kind of slightly
ditched financial services for want of a
better expression, we do need to realize
that we've got to fight for it, and that
we're not just going to automatically
be given a seat at the table.
Exactly, exactly, and to me it's
slightly heartbreaking because that's
all I've done with my life and we,
you know, I'm not complaining, we've
had some nice success stories and I'm
not starving just yet, but I would
have loved to have seen more impact.
But they all talk the talk, it
doesn't matter whether you're
Labour or Conservative or whoever.
They all say that this is what they want
to see and to be fair, there's been some
good things like VCT, EIS and stuff.
There's been these things
are really great but...
Nothing moving the needle
higher up the scale.
You've got it.
we can set these things up, but you
know, you then want to get to that
scale of capital and it's just a desert,
Yeah.
Okay and so coming to, that kind of spin
and we spoke earlier about, you know,
companies further up the spectrum being
bought out by Americans, but something
that I've heard recently from a number
of people I've interviewed and kind of
beyond is this thing of, because that
capital isn't domestic, it's encouraging
a sort of VC playbook that is quite
short term, that's flipping things
and that is actually, again, a self
fulfilling prophecy that means that the
most ambitious companies don't get an
opportunity to really flourish and so
if we want to build another Nanopore,
to use an example you're familiar with,
and quite frankly, everyone is familiar
with, actually that the capital that's
loop that we're in is a dampening
effect and I'd be really interesting
to get your thoughts on that and if
it can be sort of unpicked at all.
And it's actually got harder, I mean,
like, because of geopolitical tensions.
You know, I was just out in Hong Kong
two weeks ago, seeing some old friends,
and when I was last there, it was
like eight years ago before COVID.
and raised a huge amount of money for
Oxford over there and now there's a
feeling from them, they were lovely,
you know, they were delighted to see me
and took me for some great dinners, but
it was a bit like, well, you guys don't
really want to deal with us anymore.
You know, it's so...
We need more domestic
capital for other reasons.
Yeah, so it's a bit like,
well, we can't deal with China.
I got such grief for getting Huawei into
Oxford Sciences, you know, I thought this
was, you know, one of the world's great
big companies and things are, we're all
working well together and then suddenly
it's become a sort of political problem.
and it's all very well, sure,
we can ban China, we can ban
Saudi Arabia, we can ban anyone.
But then where's the money gonna go?
It's not making the life of the
entrepreneurs on the ground any easier.
The scientists and the entrepreneurs were
like, we want to be really ambitious.
Well, where are we going
to get the money from?
Cause the US is tricky.
The US is very tricky.
We know that, you know, they're trying
to get their capital, they do themselves,
they like to invest in their own stuff
and they've done really well at it.
So, you know, they're interested
in ideas to acquire at the right
point, but it's usually so they can
build their big companies bigger.
You know, we've seen Google do this lots
of times with, you know, the deep minds
of the world set up by, one of my oldest
friends them is the expertise is here.
The expertise is in the UK, but you
know is the finance and the ambition
because without the finance, you
know, it's not very well being
ambitious, but if you've not got any...
the analogy is any petrol in
the tank or whatever, you can't.
And these are very long,
hard journeys, right?
They don't happen overnight.
Okay, and so, coming to something that
is changing and, you know, the Mansion
House Compact has been signed by a
number of key DC pensions, defined
contribution pensions, schemes, and many
of the larger players in the insurance
buyout space and indeed lots of the
consultants that advise those pension
funds and they are committing now to
5%, which I appreciate isn't 10%, and
it's certainly not what the Canadians
have in their pension plans at 20%.
But 5 percent is still massive
compared to where we are.
I think it's below 1 percent now.
So there is going to be more pension
capital by 2030 and obviously DC
pension plans will be growing.
So call it that it might be
50, 60 billion, could be more
that's going to be coming in.
How do you see that impacting these
problems and what do you think are
the kind of straight up positives
and what do you think are perhaps
the bear traps that we need to look
out for with that capital coming in?
Well, as you say, it's all about,
you know, if we look at what
happens now, which is virtually
nothing, it will be a quantum leap.
So, like you say, it's not 20 percent
like Canada, but it's still an
enormous figure in the context...
Of a depressingly low one.
Exactly.
Still, no, I mean, you know, with
those kinds of figures, we could
create some amazing companies.
I think, again, this will all
be a little bit controversial.
We have to be careful and
we've got to be honest.
So, IP Group went and did deals with,
you know, all the universities pretty
much, you know, it was one thing that I
probably had a dozen universities signed
up before I retired and it was great.
You know, we did say Frampton,
we did Kings, Glasgow, and all
of them have got great ideas.
But even if we look at the US,
right, the US has only really
got two or three clusters.
That's a fact and they're unbelievably
good at it and unbelievably big.
But even they can't support, you know,
there's only two really famous ones and
that's the valley in the MIT cluster
and actually, I remember going to, I
think it was Gordon Brown, Tony Blair,
so I'm going back a while, right?
And they were like, we saw your work with
this IP group idea, you know, could we do
it with every single university in the UK?
And I'm like, well, to be honest, no.
And actually, I've probably
done it with too many.
I should have probably stuck to
Cambridge, London Cluster and Oxford.
And of course, it was like, well,
that's not going to play well.
We, you know, what about Manchester?
I said, yeah, I love Manchester.
I'm from Manchester, for God's sake.
And, you know, but you won't
necessarily get the scale and it's
not just about, you've got really good
science, you know, a world leading
university, but if you don't get an
ecosystem around it, it's difficult.
Yeah.
So, you know, let's say the
UK only produced clusters in
London, Oxford and Cambridge.
That'd still be an amazing achievement
that would transform the country.
But obviously they didn't want that,
they were like that's political suicide
for us to be, you know, elitist.
This is elitist.
It's about creating the most powerful
companies in the world with the best
science in the world, run by the
best people in the world, you know.
So there's no, you know, it
doesn't necessarily fit the
sort of levelling up idea.
Yeah.
That's my worry.
I'm brutally honest.
Right?
Well, they've been conflated
almost, haven't they?
And they don't necessarily sit
that comfortably in reality.
I think that's right.
And one can see why, because you have
universities geographically spread
out, you have these great ideas.
It's a tempting thing to say therefore,
hey, let's pump more money in and create
jobs and to some degree, it can be done,
perhaps, but I had somebody called Mark
Preston and he is from the motorsports
industry and we were talking about
the motorsports cluster and one of the
things that he really highlighted, which
is pretty well understood, but it's
very relevant to this conversation, is
just the high labor mobility and that
if you move to Oxfordshire with your
family from anywhere in the world, as
a brilliant motorsports, you know, F1,
Formula E, either an entrepreneur or
somebody, joining one of the big teams,
if that doesn't work out, there are lots
of other jobs here and that's the human
talent reality is that you don't want to
move your family around willy nilly, but
moving them here for motorsports is easy.
So then you need to work out, right,
well, what's adjacent to that?
What can we do that has that kind of
translational experience where people
can say, well, this actually isn't
too far away, so I feel comfortable
taking that job in Oxford too.
Spot on.
And I've actually seen that happen.
Like, even people who came with their
families, like you say, they came from
the US with their families, went into one
job, it didn't work out, or the science
didn't work, or the chemistry didn't
work, and then within a few months they
were over the road at another start up.
And, you know, I used to just
go to Boston and hang out there
for a few days and watch them.
I'd go to the bars, I'd meet some of the
entrepreneurs and just listen to them.
I just listened.
Because I'm like you know what?
I'm not clever, they're clever.
What do you, know, and one of the best
things that someone said to me It's like,
you know, you really need sort of three
things to make an ecosystem work, three
things and I'm like, oh interesting,
I'm gonna listen and he said the first
you need to have world class science.
Tick.
Done.
Secondly, it's got to be just a beautiful
place, a nice place to live and I'm like,
well, that's good, oxford's got that.
The third, you've got to be able
to walk everywhere and it's like,
Ooh, I like that too and that's
how MIT sort of built that cluster.
You see them, they, you know, a scientist
is there, you can walk over for coffee
with another engineer to give him a
job interview, then you can walk over
and see a VC about raising $20 million
to do whatever he wants to do and that
is the beauty of these ecosystems.
You've got to sort of create, and
once it starts to work, it becomes
self referencing and self fulfilling.
But again, realistically, like,
you know can we create an ecosystem
in all these university towns?
Of course we can't, it's nonsense.
We know we can't.
So coming back to kind of that point
around how you build a cluster and
kind of cross pollination between
industry and universities, I'd love
to get your thoughts on the Ellison
Institute for Technology and how that's
going to change the landscape here.
Fantastic.
Just so exciting.
It is isn't it?
Just so exciting and I think just
having someone coming into the ecosystem
like that and doing things a bit
differently and shaking it up and it's
just amazing like, and I'm sort of
so excited because, you know, here's
someone who's built, who's created
success on a scale that we can never
imagine and it's fantastic to have that.
So I think that will, you know and it
hopefully will encourage more people
who've won so big to think about doing
stuff here, like people love Oxford.
Oxford's got this weird...
and if we could pull in some of that
super talent, people who've got so
much more money that they don't need
to worry about money or whatever, but
actually just want to see ideas work.
So I think we need to be bold.
I mean like, areas like DNA
sequencing, I've spent most of my
life on that and AI again, I've
spent most of my life observing that.
You know, the UK could really make a pitch
to be world leading in one of probably
the three big areas in the world today.
I still think the sequencing
of DNA is just everything.
AI is clearly going to change
everything we do and quantum will
speed all of that up as well.
So you've got three areas that are
converging and you know Oxford could be
a world leader in all three and people
could start, like you say, with the
Ellison Institute, you could start to
see that sort of stuff, Oh well, we want
to be part of this and not just part
of it, we will bloody make it happen
because we know how to make it happen.
So giving some of these companies a
bit of a rocket up their backsides,
because some of them do need it.
I mean, some of them are
British as well, right?
We can't just keep blaming
politicians, that's boring, right?
You know, everyone just moans
or give them more money.
But, you know, I do think sometimes
we're complacent, we don't try and
grow our companies as aggressively.
That's definitely something I've
heard before, just that ambition
gap and it's a cliche, but it
seems to be one for a reason.
I mean, again, I mean, I don't want
to get into the politics of it all,
but it's almost slightly traumatizing
that, you know, Moderna delivered a
vaccine and became worth, you know,
20 billion and we delivered a vaccine
and we didn't do anything out of it.
It's a slightly, of course, it was great
because we hopefully saved millions of
lives and then helped particularly in the
developing world because it was cheaper
and more easy to deliver., So it was great
for humanity, but a bit of what we'd also
like to see a sort of, you know, a big
unicorn win out of it, which is what...
And reinvestment back into
the university that housed it.
Exactly, exactly, you know, that's it,
you know, you start to see if this stuff
works, it just goes back into funding
research and inspires that new generation
of scientists who can see, Oh, this lab
was built by this success and that's what
I've spent my life trying to encourage
people to do and at times you do feel
though that we're still sluggish, right?
So coming back to kind of Oxford and
the ecosystem here which you referred
to, you were talking about kind of
going across the road and meeting VCs
and obviously, OSE is a big source
of investment funding for lots of
companies and you also spoke earlier
about being cross department focused.
Now that we are where we are and it's
all still evolving and you know, we've
got this amazing source of capital,
do you still think that being cross
department and dare I say it, trying
to do everything, which has a negative
inferrence I appreciate, is the best
strategy or do you think that we need
to see more emergent kind of singularly
focused funds coming into Oxford?
Yeah, good question.
I think we need to almost go back
to sort of some philosophy, right?
I mean, that sounds a
bit strange, but like...
I'll go with it.
Yeah, let me just give
you a little anecdote.
So, in the early stages of COVID, one of
my favourite pubs, probably my favourite
pub in the world, the first pub I ever
had a pint in Oxford when I arrived
in 1988, was the Lamb and Flag and one
of my old, friends, she sent me this
article in the BBC saying that the Lamb
and Flag had closed because of COVID and
I thought, my God, this is like the end
of an era, like, so many great evenings
there, where we had so much fun, but also
so many serious evenings there, like, you
know, Nanopore you know, we had no money
in the early days, we used to have our
board meetings in the pub, you know, in
the early days of Nanopore and I just,
this is just such a tragedy, we lose
his pub, we lose so much of our history.
Obviously he's got all
the Tolkien and the C.S.
Lewis connection, which is unbelievably
important, you know and I just remember
thinking, I've got to do something
about this, and what I started doing,
I thought, why don't we set it up,
not for profit, something that's
really about the community and about
helping Oxford and bless them, St.
John's, I gave them the pitch and I
think they thought I was completely
crazy and I said, I really want you to
reopen this pub, but allow us to do it
differently and we'll set it up as...
we'll call it The Inklings, named after
The Inklings, and we'll try and pull
together some of the best scientists,
the best writers, the best entrepreneurs,
the best financers, we'll pull everyone
in and anyway, long story short, we
signed up more than 300 Inklings, and St.
John's allowed us to take over, and
we reopened the pub and some of those
300 names, some of them are famous
authors, but a lot of them are world
leading scientists, particularly from
the chemistry department and a lot of
them are world leading entrepreneurs
who built big businesses and no one
was allowed to put in more than £10,000
and the minimum was only £1000, so it
was very democratic, no one could...
But what almost broke my heart was some
of the messages from people who were
like no, I learned my first chemistry
in there, I learned everything in that
pub, I learned more in there than in
the labs and one guy built a business.
I'm not going to embarrass him by saying
who it is, the business was valued at
four billion at the time and he said, I
will, of course, I want to be involved,
I'm honored to be involved because it
was such a big part of my research life,
that pub and he's gone on to build this
amazing company and I just thought, you
know what, doing this sort of process,
I suddenly thought there's so much
going on, there's so many people with
ideas and history and actually I just
thought, you know what, if all we do
is open this pub and some of them meet
each other, we'll have actually done a
massive service to the ecosystem, so...
Well you joke, I've had people
say on this podcast like, where
do you go to meet entrepreneurs?
You know, you bump into them on the
street in the coffee shops in you know,
Silicon Valley or you know, as you were
saying in Boston and people have literally
said, oh, you go to the Lamb and Flag.
And it is, you know, it's incredible.
I reckon I'm going to...
We are not sponsored by the
Lamb and Flag by the way!
But I'll go there tonight and
I'm certain I will bump into
entrepreneurs, CEOs, whatever.
So what is my dream?
What I want to see, because I'm
thinking, oh, I'm 55, right?
I would want to see some young person
in the Lamb and Flag, a scientist
who's got an idea that's going to
change the world and meeting someone
who says, right, you know what?
I sold my business 5, 10 years ago,
I've got half a billion dollars in
the bank and I'm going to back you and
we're going to work together, I'll go
chair, you go CEO and we won't sell
out quickly to whoever comes along, you
know, just, and I'll help you avoid the
mistakes that I made and that's like...
So sort of peer to peer.
Exactly and you know, and it clearly
won't work like that if it sounds twee
but you know, just seeing things like that
Ellison Institute, you realise that that
magic rubs off, it becomes part of the DNA
of Oxford and part of the Oxford story,
which for me is still incredibly romantic,
there's been so many disappointments,
it's taken too long, and I'm still a
believer that some of the best ideas
in the world are in Oxford, and at some
point they will see the light of day,
you know, First Light Fusion is a dream.
If it works, it will be one of the most
important companies ever, right, in the
history of the world, you know, we'll see
if it works, I desperately pray it does,
but that's what you're playing for and if
you have enough shots on goal like that.
So rather than these kind of slightly,
let's build it, finance it, sell it
for a hundred two hundred, million
or whatever, I would love to see
some dreaming again, you know, like
some, Oxford is about dreaming.
That's the whole point, particularly
if you're younger, but if you can have
young people who are brilliant with
dreams, marrying up with older people
with money and experience, we could
do some serious damage and I worry
that we've not, we mustn't lose that.
We've got to keep that magic.
That connectivity.
Exactly and like I say, people in
the world, what do people want to do?
They want to have impact.
So actually, even though funding is
difficult, everything's difficult,
if you've got a really good idea
that will have positive impact on
the world, the chances are someone
out there will help you get there.
And do you think that, you know,
ironically, the kind of deal that's
in place with OSE that has this agreed
IP for the ideas that come out, do
you think that has any dampening
effect on those individuals thinking,
oh well it's already spoken for?
Obviously the intention isn't that, but
I've definitely heard, I've definitely
heard suggest things along that line.
It's a good question.
Probably good to clarify this because
I've probably heard every side of
the argument, again, not forever.
So I know that I'm not anything
to do with anything, I can sort
of talk about it dispassionately.
So I mean, the way all the deals
that were ever done, whether it was
IP group or OSI or CEOs there is,
had a simple philosophy that they
only shared the university stake.
They never took anything off
the scientists themselves,
that was the whole philosophy.
So theoretically, the scientists can never
be any worse off because unfortunately,
when we did this Oxford deal, some kind
of lots of strange things sort of started
to happen where people are like, well, the
UK, the reason the UK because universities
are taking too much equity, which isn't
interesting and obviously the scientists
love that idea because it's like, well,
the university should have no equity or
maybe 5 percent and we'll get it all.
Well I think the spin out review
has done quite a lot to break out
that myth and the fact that Irene
Tracy was one of the co-authors.
Exactly.
But that was where it all
kind of got conflated.
You know, there's something like,
and I'm like, well, you know, we
get what we get, we just get half
the university stake for which we've
committed a huge amount of capital.
We didn't get given it because you know,
they got this massive stake and Oxford got
600 million for its projects, you know?
So, you know, so to me, I
am still slightly of the...
at the end of the day, the university
is a charity and if you are an employee
of the university and you come up with
a brilliant idea, you should want the
university to have a big stake and
actually, one of the things that I did was
to give my stake in OSI to the university,
to my old college, because I thought,
well I don't want anyone thinking I'm
here to try and make money and exploit
these scientists, so I actually gave it.
So it paid towards the H.
B.
Allen Center.
Okay.
Amazing.
And I actually really believe passionately
that, you've got to want to...
the university, if you're there and
a professor and you've had 20 years
there, why wouldn't you want the
university to do well out of it?
It's going to pay for your
labs, your students, it's...
so, I think the debate got very charged
and very emotional and this, you know,
we could talk about it for hours, but
I think they probably arrived at a
reasonable place, but I don't believe
ever, sorry just to finish, I'll have
my rant here, this idea that, oh well
that's why the UK's doing badly because
the universities gobbled all the
equity, that's just bollocks, I'm sorry.
No and I agree with you and as I say, the
spin out review has been very helpful to
sort of really open up what everyone's
doing and compare it in broad daylight.
You know, kind of have the conversation
in the open, such as we're doing here.
It does, from conversations I'm
having, and I'm not subject to it,
but I don't think that people don't
want the university to have it.
I think that there has been a sense that
somehow the signaling power of having the
university is not somehow a positive thing
and I guess I would say that out loud,
not because I necessarily agree with it,
you know, part of the tagline of Oxford
Plus is to kind of dispel some of the
myths and I would say this is a pretty
well propagated myth and I think that
it's quite important that we are sort of
actively reaching out to people such as
you've suggested, but also kind of, you
know, institutions, entities, and make
sure that Oxford has the right reputation
as an investor, increasing the probability
of success and I don't, truthfully,
really understand why that isn't the case.
It's an interesting one.
So I can only speak from my experience.
2015, I kind of came back and I retired
when I turned 50, which was January 2019.
So I sort of had four years.
I think in that four years, you'd
have to check the numbers, but I think
I'm probably confident that in that
four years we created more spin outs
and raised more capital than in the
last 20 years, just in four years.
Which is an extraordinary achievement.
So to me everyone, like, Oxford,
what I love about Oxford, right, you know,
you've got 20,000 incredibly clever people
all disagreeing all the time, right?
So I've just learned to live with that.
But ultimately, numbers
are numbers, right?
Since Oxford Sciences arrived,
the figures, any kind of matrix,
anything you want to look at,
just went through the roof.
You know, and funds came and invested
in Oxford, who'd never invested in
Oxford, never even been to Oxford and
I know that because I've brought a lot
of them here and they said, Oh, we've
never been here, this is beautiful,
maybe we'll hang out here more,
you know?
So...
And are they still coming?
They're still coming, but again, so I'm
not here to do an advert for OSC, right?
That's not, I left in 2019, I think, you
know, it's still run by people who I'm
very good friends with, I've got a drink
with one of the senior people tonight.
I think, you know, it's common knowledge
OSC had some management issues, I left
and then they went through two CEOs and it
all became a bit, you know, COVID hit, so
probably the personal thing wasn't there.
I think some of the scientists
like, oh, we don't see OSC anymore.
I still can't get used to the name change
as well so you know, we don't, whatever
they call it, we don't see them anymore.
So I think there was a bit of, you
know, oh he's having a bit of a dark
patch, not to say that it was under
a great patch with me under it.
I'm not trying to make that pointment,
I think there was definitely some
internal strife, I think and I'm very
hopeful they've got through that, I
hear good things again, I hear oh yeah,
we saw them again last week and it's,
we, are all working together, so...
And actually I've got Ed Bussey
coming on next week and I'm really
excited to hear what the plans are.
I'm very excited that, you know, there's a
platform where, hopefully, further to this
conversation, we'll be able to dispel, in
sort of real time and meet some of those,
not criticisms, that's too strong, but
like, you know, get up in front of it.
I've always said, like I said, that's
why I gave away my shares at the start.
So I was like, all I've ever wanted
is to see brilliant ideas in Oxford
get out there into the world.
So if there's anything stopping
that, I want to know about it.
like, so to me, but you
know, I've not heard any...
Like anything isn't it?
You know, it takes years to win a good
reputation, and it can be a short period
where, you know, you can lose it and we
spoke about this on the way over here to
the studio, but I think it's incredibly
easy to be a naysayer, and actually we
need to be part of people saying right,
we can be more than the sum of our parts.
We've got a lot of good stuff here.
I love this, but pie makers and pie
eaters, like everyone just wants the pie
to be bigger because then everyone does
better rather than worrying about, you
know, everyone's little fiefdoms and I
think it's really important that Oxford
and all of its stakeholders take some
responsibility for being constructive.
100 percent agree and Oxford has
got this weird, like, I love the
place, but it does have an amazing
ability to be petty at times.
Yeah, I've seen it happen at a drinks
party where it's like, you know,
that person's over there, right?
Are you serious that you're saying this?
And I was really shocked.
So, you know, we're all just got to get
stronger and bigger and get on with it.
I don't live here anymore, so I
miss the place and the main reason
I come back is to visit my pub, but
you know, there's nothing I want to
see more in my life than these ideas
work and Oxford reach its potential.
That's so important, right?
You know, again, on the way over, we
were talking about cancer vaccines,
you're talking about blood sugar
testing, you know, these are things
that change millions of lives
and we all want to see it happen.
Absolutely and this place has got it.
You know, what do we know?
The world has got a lot of problems and
we also know that a lot of the solutions
are in this beloved city of ours.
So, you know, we've just got to have that
ambition to say, right, we're going to
go for it and nothing's going to stop us.
So when are we going to host
the big Oxford conference when
we get everybody to come here?
You know what?
Again, maybe it was COVID, but we need
to do more of that, you know, Oxford's
got some of the nicest buildings in the
world, what they should be doing, and OSE
should be helping them and it's like, fill
those buildings, fill them with the best
ideas in Oxford and the best people in the
world, it's not complicated, that's what
needs to get done, and that's what I did.
I wore myself out doing it, you know,
but I kind of, it's like, you know,
we're going to have another conference.
, We don't just want to talk about AI.
We want to show everyone what we've
got, you know, and, if we think
we've got another Nanopore, it's
like, here, this is what we've got,
and we have to be ambitious and give
them nice dinners at High Table.
It doesn't matter if you're one of
the richest people in the world.
It's so fabulous, it's such a treat.
Well, as we've seen with the
Ellison Institute, people who are
successful beyond anything we can
imagine still want to be involved
in these projects and that...
are hallowed halls, right?
It's a privilege to live here, it's a
privilege to go into a college, it's
a privilege to be around people that
their ideas have the potential to
change the world and all the rest of
us need to do is get on board and be
helpful in whatever way we are capable.
It's funny you say that, it takes
me back to, days when I'd just
arrived as an undergraduate and
probably I was a bit cocky in those
days because I was a chess player.
You don't know what you don't know yet!
Yeah, you just think, you
know, and like some people, Oh,
he's like a top chess player.
Yeah.
I mean, you have more reason than most.
Well, no, you know, and I remember
like, I think he was the college stud,
he was a good looking guy, he was
brilliant at sport and all that stuff
and he came up to, I think I wanted to
join the squash team, he let me play
squash with him to give me a trial.
He said, you might make it into the
third team, you know, so it was like a...
and I just remember him sort of walking by
me and say, yeah, you've got a chess set?
I said, yeah, I don't know.
He said, what you need to understand
about Oxford, he's like a year older
than me, he wasn't my tutor, you know he
said, what you need to understand about
Oxford is no matter how big you think
you are, it's so much bigger than you.
Actually it's not a bad point,
you know, it's not a bad point.
No, I've said that to lots of
people since I've moved here.
Thank you, Dave, this has been
a really great conversation.
Is there anything else you want to
add that you feel we haven't covered?
No, I suppose the only thing that, you
know, lots of new ideas in therapeutics
and vaccines, there's no question, we need
to see the convergence of AI with some
of our, you know, things like chemistry
and drug libraries because that will
change everything, you know, the minute
we start to use the power of generative
AI to do research faster, it will be
transformational, particularly when you
sort of throw quantum computing into that.
So you start to think, well, if there's
ever been a time in human history,
this is the historian in me sort
of struggling to come out, I think
we're going to see the equivalent
of, you know, a hundred industrial
revolutions in the next ten years.
Literally, that's what I believe,
passionately and that could, a big part
of it could happen in Oxford and it
only needs one idea to work in Oxford.
We've seen how big ideas are, like
that's what the Americans have
taught us, you have one idea and it
can be worth a couple of trillion.
So, you know, I'd love to
see people dreaming again.
Like, the biggest ideas in the
world, some of them are here, why
can't we have at least one that
starts to have that ambition.
And just be ambitious.
Thank you.
Brilliant.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this
episode of Oxford Plus, presented
by me, Susannah de Jager.
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