The project’s kick-off was established by the signature of the Grant Agreement. Parallel to this procedure, Magnomics was contacted by its Key Account Manager (KAM), from the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), regarding the coaching procedure. After assessing the company’s needs, the KAM concluded that there was no coach with relevant expertize profile in the EEN database. Therefore, Magnomics suggested a coach and the KAM supported the process of bringing this professional expert into the coach database.
On September 2016 Magnomics received the visit of the selected coach in its facilities and a global meeting took place, involving all the team. After a presentation of the company, its goals and technological status, a wide range of subjects were discussed, from both the strategic and the operational points of view. These subjects were oriented by the CE-IVD marking needs, requested by the market and potential investors. A global strategy was defined to overcome innovation and regulatory hurdles, supported by a validation and implementation plan.
The involvement of all the company’s team and the expertize of the coach allowed for a better alignment of science and business, identifying the main risks in the development of the technology and the adequate strategies to minimize them.
This framework allowed for a better development of the MAGTEST project and for a smoother achievement of its goals. MAGTEST was internally structured in five tasks, the last one including the main deliverables, the business plan and the feasibility study:
Task number Task name Key deliverable
1.1 Veterinary diagnostics market analysis Market report
1.2 IPR strategy Framework for innovation recording, patent writing and submission / corporate
1.3 Legal viability Freedom to operate and regulatory pathway analysis and roadmap
1.4 Define product/service concept details User and functional requirement specifications document
1.5 Business plan + Feasibility study + continuous report Deliverables themselves
All tasks involved at least one member of Magnomics’ scientific team and at least on member of the management team. Task 1.2 was the most expensive one, since it involved a wider scope and highly specialized expertise from patent officers, international consultants with worldwide know-how. According to the investors, this task also brings a significant added value to the company and its technology, so it had to be rightly addressed. On the other hand, task 1.3 was the smoothest, leveraging some previous work developed by Magnomics that was structured and systematically analyzed under the MAGTEST project.
The project was developed between August 2016 and January 2017, with each task starting near the end of the previous one, in a waterfall model. The first task involved a veterinary diagnostics market analysis, particularly oriented to the confirmation of the ideal markets for first entry. This task was developed by an external consultant, a worldwide expert in animal health with vast experience in business development and with a strong background on veterinary practice and technical services (Tom Overbay, Expedite Animal Health).
The tasks then developed were the intellectual property (IP) strategy and the legal viability, both aligned with the results obtained from the previous task. The veterinary diagnostics market analysis points towards the USA as a key market. According to the stakeholders feedback, this market's exploitation depends on the creation of a local company and, therefore, legal local services were required, regarding corporate matters. Regarding IP, perceived by the investors as high value assets, MAGTEST included the assessment of these matters both in the USA and in Europe. Parallel to the IP review, a full freedom-to-operate was obtained for the EU and is still ongoing in the US. These tasks benefited from an existing framework, further enriched and informed during the project, thus allowing the achievement of strong results during the project’s time frame.
The longest task from the MAGTEST project was the product/services concept details definition that accompanied almost all the project’s length. This task was periodically updated as results were obtained on the other tasks. Some of the initial assumptions and previous conclusions were questioned and updated accordingly and new strategy lines were opened.
All the tasks contributed to MAGTEST’s project deliverables, namely to the Feasibility Study and the Business Plan, included in the last task of the project. Both these documents were highly enriched by the coaching activity. This, and the results of the MAGTEST project, introduced clarity and helped align the company’s internal strategy as well as a path to reach the market. Some initial perceptions of the team were challenged and, as a result, some technical procedures were updated, some constraints and contingency plans were identified, new countries were considered for IP submission and, overall, a more effective future exploitation of the company’s product is now possible. With this new alignment, MAGTEST results will also be used for a stronger phase 2 SME Instrument application, by the end of which Magnomics will reach the market in a more robust setting.
