The business model is the key point. If you are a start-up company you might decide differently from a big corporation. Anyways what is important nowadays is the "healthcare value" assessment that will lead to your decision. According to who is your favorite stakeholder (analysis following for example an HTA) you will direct your actions to a specific target, i.e. selling a product or an idea.

you can look at my one or two publication..you may find some answers..

http://svnit.academia.edu/DrHemantkumarBulsara

The main, really main challenge is addressing a real-world market need, identifying it, finding a few pre-orders and focusing your effort on execution of the solution you propose. Sounds far more easy than it is done. By the way, there is a mountain of innovation theories and sources out there you can look at.

I was talking only of my field "healthcare" and "medical products", of course.

Please look at this article published in Techmonitor - an UN ESCAP publication.

http://www.academia.edu/735935/COMMERCIALIZATION_OF_TECHNOLOGY_INNOVATIONS_AND_PATENTS

above article published in the special issue on Commercialization of Innovations and Patents..so can look at other articles too..

for more information you can log on to:

www.techmonitor.net

you will get lots of information...and their journal - techmonitor

It really depends on a number of factors, both internal and external. What are internal abilities and resources? What are the external industry conditions? What is your ability to raise capital? A simple question without a simple answer.

Thank you Hemant: you have really interesting articles in this regards.

@Emanule: I know your company 'Fresenius' and I have some contacts too. Really a successful company, happy to see you here and your valuable suggestions.

@Wolfgang: I have a patent protected idea and a successful working model of that idea. So that we can sell our ideas in the form of licensing our intellectual property.

Sometimes ideas can not get life due to the lack of enough capital. I know some of my friends are struggling to get support in this regards.

@ Santiago:The identification and addressing our ideas or products to the investors as well as to the market or customers with a proper business model is also very important, Thank you.

Poor customer perception which leads to poor reception, in a adequate budgeting, wrong commercialization strategy of poor execution of the same, wrong assumption s of the marketer

Hi Lijo, do you have free reign to practice your patent--does your university (or anyone else) have any claim on your IP? Does your university have resources to support your licensing efforts? What is the geographic scope of your IP? I may be able to help you with licensing strategy, depending on what you have--one of the experts on my team specializes in University Tech Transfer. The choice between productizing or licensing is complex. Consider whether your product application(s) is relatively straightforward or not (does your technology alone solve a problem, or is it one of multiple technologies and business processes required for a commercial solution). Also think about the existing businesses in your application field(s)--are there obvious candidates to license to (are the business scenarios big enough to interest them and how hard would it be for them to integrate your technology into their product portfolio and sales and marketing channels)? Ultimately, the more traction you have, the better your position. Traction = validated technological feasibility (within commercial constraints/at commercial scale) + validated market feasibility (evidence of willing buyers or 'product-market fit') + validated business feasibility (big market, customers willing to pay enough to generate profit when delivered at scale). Check out professor Steve Blank's work at Berkeley on 'Customer Development' (http://steveblank.com). Hope this helps!

It is a difficult question to answer. It depends on the entrepreneurial skills and interests of the inventor, the sophistication of the management skills backing her/him and the array of institutional supports either in the corporation or local ecosystem to assist in the commercialization.

It is better not to produce if we do not have market and advantage in creativity, quality and price in comparison with other producers. If we have a brand new product on the market than we must protect it though IPP and have an expert team for marketing.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has a nice picture that shows how the value of the Intellectual Property is increased through the leverage of "complimentary assets". What this means, is you can get more for your invention if you can progress further with the product development. Technology buyers want a discount for the risk they take and the money they still need to spend. The more you have done to establish the technical and business feasibility of the idea, the more likely you are to attract a customer and the more they will pay.

Product Development is not easy and can be very expensive, so you will need to decide what is desirable and within your organisation's expertise/capacity.

I recently finished my thesis about the role of technology Transfer Office in the course of university based technology. It's a comparison study between China, U.S. and Germany. So if your technology came from the public fund, firstly the IP protection policy of your university is important. From this you can evaluate the patentability and commercial potential of your technology.

Generally, firstly you shall make clear the value of your technology in the market. What firms want is the advanced technology with the exclusive right. Secondly you need know in which stage of your technology, e.g. prototype, product in lab. It will determine how much will the VC invest. All in all, it is a complicated question and maybe need your teamwork or professionals.

Hi Lijo

It sounds like an obvious question, but as you can imagine it is important.... when you say you have applied for patent protection, does the patent belong to you or the University ? The answer is not as obvious as it might seem. If you haven't checked already with the KAUST IP officer, I would very strongly recommend you do so ASAP to get this point clarified from the outset.

The choice between licensing and producing is a tough one - there's a lot to consider. As I recall, KAUST has a very strong tech transfer department, with a significant track-record in licensing and a recently increased focus on supporting national economic diversification. I would suggest you have a chat with them as to the available options, so you can weigh up the pros and cons of each..

@Dan & Margaret and all: Thanks a lot for your great support. Of course, we have already filed and published a couple of patents and couple more are under processing. KAUST is also a part of the patent. We are in touch with tech transfer dept. and and they are ready to help.

Thanks Dan for your great recommendations.

Good luck, Lijo! Let us know how things are going if you can :)

My pleasure, Dan! :)

The most impotent thing to find out is, in my opinion, if you really have a product. In the definition: a product is something that can be sold AND someone is willing to pay for it. If you can pin down what it is exactly what you plan to sell, you can figure out the potential production cost. And then try to find out if there is really someone who needs your product so much that he will pay for it. And roughly how much. If these two figures fit, you have a product. If not, you don't.

If it seems to be achievable to convert idea into successful product then it's better to sell product because we will get ultimate or wholesale profit of the invention. Otherwise we can sell idea also to get valuable gains on our new investigated idea. What I think is that commercialization of product is big task. Main challenge is to successfully targeting the product to the consumer or customer without investing too much time & money. Also we should analyze and protect the invention in targeting region (country) to get much more profit.

Often times the funding required to actually bring an idea to life (beyond prototype) and scale it are a big hurdle. Likewise the execution of an idea into a business requires vastly different skills than the research that underpins the idea. Universities use technology transfer (and have a dedicated Technology Tranfer Office in many cases) to match research findings and ideas to businesses with the capital and competencies to actually turn them into commercially viable outcomes.

Hi,

In my opinion, "Product Cost" is the most important factor for commercialization.

Good luck