Queensland Life Sciences Industry Report 2012 (PDF, 3.5MB)

Similarly, the major constraint to both the R&D and
commercialisation activities of New Zealand bioscience companies
in 2005, 2007 and 2009, was access to capital. 93
In January 2011, US President Obama announced a new
initiative, Startup America designed to ‘accelerate high-growth
entrepreneurship’. Recognizing that access to capital was a
critical barrier to the creation and growth of innovative start-up
companies, the initiative included strategies designed to unlock
access to capital and reduce barriers to entrepreneurship. 94
In the current survey, companies were asked to comment on the
extent to which limited access to finance was impacting their
business. For 72% of respondents (97), limited access to finance
was having an impact (very significantly, 32%; significantly, 21%;
moderately, 19%). 28% of respondents indicated that this barrier
was having little or no impact (Figure 26).
Figure 26: Impact of limited access to finance of QLS companies
(97 respondents)
43% of companies (96) were optimistic or very optimistic that this
barrier could be overcome e.g. through successful capital raising,
deploying other strategies to raise funds, or alternative strategic
directions. 19% were pessimistic or very pessimistic about
overcoming the barriers to accessing capital (Figure 27).
Figure 27: Outlook of companies affected by limited access
to finance (96 respondents)
9.2.3 Barriers to Future Income Growth
(other than access to finance)
Looking beyond the issue of access to capital, survey participants
(104) nominated other major barriers to future income growth
from eleven options including an ‘Other’ category (Table 53).
TABLE 53: Barriers to future revenue growth
Rank Area Proportion of total
responses
1 Limited access to government grant
funding
15.6%
2 Small size of domestic market 13.0%
Increased domestic and/or international
competition
12.8%
4 Increased regulatory compliance costs 11.9%
5 Inability to secure skilled technical and
managerial staff
11.0%
6 Access to overseas markets 9.8%
7 Increased patent protection costs 6.9%
8 Lack of access to analytical testing,
research or clinical trial services
5.9%
Lack of commercialisation experience or
expertise (e.g. to reach proof of concept)
10 Inability to outsource sufficient
manufacturing capacity
5.7%
3.8%
11 Other 3.6%
9.2.4 Risks and Challenges
Survey respondents (111) nominated the issues that they
considered to be the major risks or challenges facing their
organisation (Table 54). Respondents were able to select more
than one risk.
TABLE 54: Major risks or challenges facing QLS organisations
Rank Risk/challenge Proportion of total
responses
1 Access to sufficient capital for growth
or market entry
14.0%
2 High Australian Dollar 12.8%
Regulatory Issues 12.8%
4 Global financial turmoil 11.7%
Access to R&D funding 11.7%
6 Workforce challenges
(e.g. skills shortages)
11.5%
7 Competition 8.9%
8 Consumer behaviour 7.3%
9 Climate change and associated
regulatory change
3.1%
10 Technology and systems 2.5%
11 Transport and distribution 2.0%
12 Other 1.7%
93 NZBIO 2010 Bioscience Industry Report 2010; commissioned by the Ministry for Science and Innovation. www.nzbio.org.nz/portals/3/files/Final%202010%20
Bioscience%20Industry%20Report.pdf; accessed 4th July 2012.
94 See The White House accessed at http://www.whitehouse.gov/economy/business/startup-america.
59