Have affix a summary of my answers for the coming event tomorrow for my input as a panellist.

Introduction

Furley Bioextracts started out as a specialized ingredient seller starting out its humble beginnings at home, progressing onto a shop lot and now our own multiple certified manufacture premises. Food, Cosmetic, Traditional, Medical Device, Extraction and Spray Drying.

We pride ourselves on research and venturing into paths less tried by others.

Our specialities are:

  • Research
  • Unique Custom Testing
  • Precommercalisation
  • Commercialization
  • Export

An example of this is our Wound Care product using DermaXan a very special extract that has polyfunctional wound treatment characteristics.

How can Malaysian Nutraceutical Companies market their product successfully oversea?

Real holy grail of a question

The approach for us is a multidiscipline mixture of targeted marketing, suitable distribution partners, timing and luck.

Regulatory is usually the first hurdle then market acceptance and promotional activities. A lot of it will fall on your distribution partner in the country you are exported to.

How do you find the current research works in Malaysia? Are they of your interest? Can you share your thought on this and how we can bridge the gap between Academia and Industry?

Research as with most of it is specialized and depends on who is looking at evaluating it.

Yes, we are working with research institutions for the future progression of our products.

Bridging the gap for us aside from policy, funding is the immediate relationship between the principal researcher and the company. We have been very fortunate to have found researchers which understand our direction, our constraints and desires.

What challenges that you/your company faces when come to research and product development? Can you name 1 – 2 examples.

Marketing, Regulation and Acceptance. Continuously distinguishing between marketing research and product improvement.

Sometimes research is too new, the public mass market does not understand and require further education. An example is the nutrigenomics and proteomics testing we have had Spray8 with DermaXan which was done to further understand and improve the product as well as how we explain the product to medical doctors.

Even then we struggle to explain it clearly to medical health professionals, there are a lot of terms unheard of and specific gene expressions that are not currently part of their vocabulary.

Based on “Malaysia Situation”, what is your best suggestion for researchers and young start-ups or wish / change that you would like to see from policy markers?

For me, I believe the relationship between the company and research institution with SME is based on the synergy between principal investigator and company. With that in mind.

To further ease and encourage this, incentives and subsidies can be considered.

A match with a researchers specialization & interest and private company is far and few. After which the KPI of the academic is highly driven on publication; to bridge this funding from the government could be repurposed for private company product/service improvement.

IP ownership where is the boundary?.

It has to be clearly defined who has ownership of the IP, would depend on the degree and complexity of the research involved in order to justify the institution to take on and maintain the IP or share the IP with a private company.

An approach where proceeds or % of sales are reintroduced to the research institution for future research pertaining to the same product. Thereby further helping both parties close the loop on old and new product development

Of course, a key challenge is not one model fits all companies and each product is at different stages of maturity in the sense of scientific prowess.

Closing Remarks

All opinions made are in a personal capacity of Kelvin Soo the Managing Director of Furley Bioextracts and do not represent the position of the company.