In this episode, my guest is Shona Faber, Non-Executive Director of ARB Corporation, previously Managing Director CRC Industries, and General Manager of Specialty Gases & Chemicals at BOC. We talk about her experiences in bringing EDN, a novel fumigant chemical, licensed from CSIRO Entomology to market in her role at BOC. In discussing the journey that unfolded in this product coming to market, we touch on risk management and managing constant change as a new chemical is shepherded through various regulatory systems to market. We also reflect on a few key moments as we look at how the relationship between the licensee and licensor unfolded, and the twists and turns associated in any post-license engagements. We also touch on the role Dravlovska has played on the journey to global product launch.
Shona shares her journey into tech transfer from the bench to the boardroom, and how her interest in customers and problem solving took her to solving complex product marketing challenges in a number of heavy industries. What really resonates is that in managing risk there also comes a bravery to act in getting things done in complex environments. We also discuss how assumptions and conditions for success are critical to establishing a shared view between partners on what are typically convoluted journeys.
Transcript
CB: Hello everyone, and welcome to Tech Transfer Talk. My name is Cameron Begley, Managing Director of Spiegare, and we’ve got the great thrill today of having Shona Faber join us, who is a non-executive director at ARB Corporation and has a number of non-executive director roles. But most, in particular, Shona and I had a shared experience when she was at BOC, which then became Linde Gases, and that experience is what we will talk about in our discussions today. But we will also talk a bit about how Shona found her way into this lovely world of tech transfer. Shona, thanks for joining us.
SF: Thanks, Cameron. I’m really pleased to be here today and working through our discussion on our shared experiences through tech transfer and all the challenges and the good times we faced.
CB: Absolutely, Shona. And it was both of those and even more when we were dealing with the commercialisation of EDN and COS. And for our listeners who aren’t organic chemists, of which I expect there are a few, EDN is ethylene dinitride and COS is carbonyl sulfide I think was…
SF: Correct.
CB: And these two gases were developed by CSIRO in the 1990s and were then licensed to BOC in around 2004. But before we get into the lovely details of fumigants and what they’re used for, Shona, how did you get to BOC and what’s happened since?
SF: Thanks, Cameron. So, I got to BOC…so, I started my life as an industrial chemist. I quickly worked out that I didn’t want to be a lab rat, and I enjoyed the customer-centric relationships. So, I moved off into sales. I did some operational roles. I did a Bachelor of Business and majored in marketing because I knew that I was very technical, analytical and I needed some softer marketing skills, I needed to be a bit more grounded. I did a Bachelor of Business. And that took me into progression to business management within BOC. And then, that’s where we cross paths around these technical transfers. So, I guess I had the very analytical background which was needed for these products to come to life. But I also had a strong commercial and business background, which meant that I could engage with people like yourself and CSIRO to do commercial terms and bring the market, to bring the products to market across the world.
CB: Yeah. I think it’s a very powerful combination of technical degree with a bit of business and commercial acumen. But I, of course, may be entirely biased in that view because I think we’re cut from similar cloths there, Shona.
SF: Very much so.
CB: But when the party was over at BOC for you, you then moved on to Orica.
SF: I did, I moved on to a global role within Orica. They liked the changes and what I’d done at BOC, and were looking for the similar changes in their specialty chemical business. So, I moved to Melbourne and picked up that role. Did get very homesick, so, after I did a tenure with Orica in the in the global role, I then came back to Sydney as a managing director with CRC, and I’ve been around in the mining resources sector since then, and I’ve now moved into non-executive roles with ARB Corporation.
CB: Yeah. So, it’s that sort of heavy industry theme there of BOC, Orica, CRC, which sort of pulls that thread together.
SF: Correct. Very, very industrial mining sources, sector background.
CB: Yeah, fantastic. When it comes to EDN and COS, to dive just straight in to our discussion. How did you come into orbit around this matter?
SF: So, I was looking after four different business units, and one of those was around the fumigation. So, I picked up, I guess the obvious thing when you look at a new business is around risks and what’s being worked on, where the business was at. And the thing that stood out to me was we had this overarching relationship with CSIRO that probably wasn’t in its best place…as a stakeholder. And that bothered me. And then I also could see these two products that were emerging for the world as a replacement for methyl bromide, which was incredibly important. And there’d been a lot of work done on both sides, but it seemed that the relationship was in a difficult place, and everything had stagnated, and there was significant work that was easily identified that needed to be done. But first and foremost, was the repair of the relationship with CSIRO.
CB: Yeah. No. Well…
SF: That’s where we met.
CB: That’s where we met. And that’s a really interesting context from where you were sitting there, Shona, ’cause I was the second commercial manager involved with this technology. My predecessor did the deal and, all done in good faith and with great fanfare, as I recall in 2004. I remember sitting in a CSIRO corporate meeting where this was held up as one of the deals of the year. So, there was indeed great expectation on the CSIRO side. So, I inherited this. But it also had seemed, by the time you were involved, David Adams, who was my colleague at the time, um, he, he was the third business development manager involved, and I think we’re on our second or third lawyer at that stage. So, yeah, relationships didn’t have a lot of continuity.
SF: No. And I think the similar thing had happened inside BOC. There’d been staffing changes, movements. I’d obviously replaced someone who was no longer with BOC. And it just seemed it had faded into everyone’s background except for the little ugly nugget in the middle around, there was a contract; there were some requirements that needed to be delivered against, but no one kind of knew what the next step forward was. So, that was you and I getting together. And look what we’ve got…we’ve got a blank board. How do we how do we fix the relationship? How do we pull this apart and work out what needs to be done? What does the commercial agreement look like? How do we get that back to a playing field? And then, how do we kind of get on with the nuts and bolts? So, we’ve got this fantastic technology. We’ve got a lot of work to do to deliver it. We’ve got a lot of stakeholders to convince stakeholders inside CSIRO, stakeholders inside BOC, stakeholders in the marketplace, whether that be customers, emergency services, transport companies. There was a huge amount of work left to do, let alone someone who could manufacture the products from an industrial scale.
CB: Indeed, indeed. And manufacturing is one of those many elements that we realised, I think, needed some attention. Before we dive into manufacturing, you’ve already framed things around relationships, which, for regular listeners of the podcast will know, is a theme that works through just about every discussion we have. We sort of talk about transactions are built on relationships, not the other way around. And so, we had a transaction in a licence, but a pretty poor relationship at that point. And so, I think I think you were right to identify that as the first port of call. But I think the other really interesting part of that relationship equation is, you’ve talked about all the stakeholders. So it wasn’t just you and I in the room and David and was it Christie who was…
SF: Christie Harder
CB: Christie Harder. That’s right. Yeah, I was reaching back there to find her name. So, it wasn’t just the four of us in the room, but as you say, it was all the people in BOC, up the line and across the business. Keeping people in CSIRO engaged. We had scientists that had been involved. We had management, who were looking at this as a great deal that was done. But the external people, customers, logistics, government…
SF: Government, Department of Environment and Heritage, APVMA…
CB: Absolutely.
SF: Significant parties who had the opportunity to make or break the development of this technology. And we had to get them all aligned.
CB: Yeah, absolutely.
SF: One step forward.
CB: Yeah, yeah. And I think that alignment piece, again, I kind of think somewhere along the way, Shona, someone or everyone or somewhere in between all thought, ‘Oh well, methyl bromides being regulated by the Montreal Protocol, we’ll sit back, and we’ll watch the sales roll in.’
SF: Correct. And people did think that, they didn’t realise the grip that that very old technology had. And, it still comes down to one person in each of those stakeholders had to be the person that signed that bit of paper, that we move the next step, and that was the significant piece, was finding someone who was brave enough, someone who believed enough in the technology, even though most people got it, and they wanted it. Did they want to be the person who signed the bit of paper that allowed us to move forward another step?And whether that was no, Department of Environment and Heritage, so we could get the product imported from the manufacturer who was overseas, the APVMA to sign that off so that it was safe for people to use, a customer who wanted to be the first person to trial it, the emergency services person who wanted to agree to, transport it, they were first responders to it.
CB: Yeah. No, it’s a great way to frame it. The bravery to act first. And particularly when bringing a new product to market, that’s a big, big deal. I think the other observation I’ve made over the years, Shona, is that regulators tend not to act in the absence of the evidence that there is a commercial solution available to match that regulatory move. And this, perhaps, might be something that we’ll uncover, but I’m not sure we had all of that lined up strongly enough to convince the regulator that it was under control. Which brings me sort of back to the manufacturing question, because I don’t think we don’t think we could show people we could make it.
SF: I agree, there was still so many unknowns and so many really big steps that we needed to take forward, and should have been further along the line of, to get these key external stakeholders to be signing this off. And then when we got together and we started moving this forward, we had to be taking really big steps in a project plan where we should have been taking half steps. And so, we were actually trying to move this forward in such big steps, a lot of it was parallel where it should have been vertical. That was very difficult.
CB: I can certainly see that. And the manufacturing and the registration pieces probably should have been a little bit more linear rather than parallel.
SF: I agree, because we had so much to do. We were all heading off with a huge amount of work to do, in a totally different direction, but that was the only way we were going to get this done.
CB: Yeah, yeah. And I remember on the manufacturing side, there was talk of Chinese manufacturing, which they were completely capable of, but there was no verification, there was no testing of product, no supply chains established. It just seemed to be someone had placed a phone call and that, ‘Well, well, that’ll be okay then.’
SF: You know, I agree that there was not enough, there hadn’t been enough due diligence done and I guess, thought given to this around risk and risk mitigation and just who was going to be the right partner in this process, given the opportunity. This is, first in world technology to be launched. The partner, the business partner, in this, was critical. I think they had taken this on with the right intent and the excitement of the technology, and what we could do with CSIRO, and how this was going to change the world. And then kind of stumbled at the fact, they were gas manufacturers, not into chemical synthesis manufacture and development. And there was so much more to that. And I think, it’s not being critical of how BOC handled this. This just then became a scope that was just bigger than the capability that, they, it wasn’t core business. And it wasn’t that they didn’t have the capability in the building, because they did. It was around, it was not core business for them. And so, then that became a struggle of a mindset.
CB: Yeah.
SF: We kind of needed to work our way through, especially when we were convincing stakeholders internally, that this was definitely the right thing to do for this business portfolio. And that there was, a huge revenue stream to be gained through this development and the launching of these products. But we needed to, we needed to be aligned with CSIRO and our thinking, in our commercial agreements, and how we wanted to go to market. We needed to find, a capable, competent, supplier who operated with integrity globally, because there was IP risks, there was manufacturing risk, there were supply chain risks. There were all these risks that we had to mitigate through. And having the right supply partner and manufacturing business partner was going to be the piece that managed all those risks with us versus having someone you are constantly going to be at angst with.
CB: You’ve raised that issue of competency. And I’ve no doubt that CSIRO and BOC ended in this full of enthusiasm and good faith and good intent. But when that, you talk about due diligence, it’s that, corporate competencies and ‘What are we really good at and what aren’t we so good at?’ And there’s no doubt that, you would look, when I put myself back in 2008, nine, ten, there’s no doubt BOC were excellent at supply chain management of gases. You guys could move a cylinder of anything, anywhere, at any time, but no competency in how to do the synthesis or no competency in how to do the associated chemical, dangerous, DG, dangerous goods work and logistics. And so, so yeah, so really core in one part and absent in another part. And it was just, then all became a bit out of whack I think there.
SF: It did, and then we needed to, we worked really quickly to build that competency. You know, whether it was internally or with third parties, which is how we ended up with Draslovska in Prague as our business partner. You know, they’re clearly world class, clearly demonstrated the capability as a business partner. They were very engaged, very understanding of the chemistry. It was their specialty. They were very understanding of the CSIRO relationship, the agreements, and how to take that chemistry and work with us to take it to market. So, they were, there was just no other option around anyone else being a business partner, but that operation.
CB: And Draslovska really only emerged, as I recall, sort of in 2010, 2011. So, this was just as BOC was being acquired by Linde, if I’ve got the timing about right, and so, so just for the, just to bring everyone back, we are now six years into our licensing agreement, and we actually don’t have a manufacturer pinned down yet, nor do we have a product registered. And in the background, there is a patent ticking away, which is, from CSIRO’s perspective, a bit of an issue because normally you generate returns based on the patent life, right.
SF: Right.
CB: So, the clocks from a CSIRO perspective, the urgency’s increasing because…
SF: I think from everyone’s perspective, the urgency was increasing. You know, BOC had invested into this commercially. And I was selling this, as a global opportunity. And yet, like you say, the clock kept ticking. So it was, we needed to bed down a really good partner, which we did in Draslovska. And they were, they’re amazing in being very easy to deal with, and their understanding of the chemistry, and their understanding of how they could manufacture it, package it, move it, and then we were working madly in the background with multiple countries, on approvals and with different regulators in all these different countries, whether it was in the Asian countries, which was, they were looking for different policy and procedure, and what they wanted from us to get it approved. There New Zealand, inside Australia, working with APVMA…Israel… Turkey has just approved EDN. So, Turkey, this week has got approved EDN…
CB: This week! So, as we record in August of 2023…
SF: There’s countries still bringing EDN online.
CB: To put this in context, right. So, the patent was filed in 1996. Okay. It expired around 2015. There may have been some extensions that we don’t have on hand, but now we’re in 2023. So, we are the best part of 27 years from the patent filing, which means we’re probably about 30 years from where the first experiments were done. And we’re still getting initial registrations in jurisdictions.
SF: We’re still bringing this online, well Draslovska is still bringing this online around the world. And again, that goes back to the difficulty of registering and bringing to life a new age chemistry. In this world, regardless of how dangerous and poor methyl bromide is in its usage. great efficacy and great ability for what it does as a product. But you know, the results of its usability to the environment and to people, most importantly, around cancer. It’s still taking this long for governments to accept all the documentation, all the history, all the experience that’s been built up now, for someone to sign that off and be able to bring this to life.
CB: Yeah.
SF: And it’s been used, it’s been used in countries around the world now for…since 2010, 2011, 2012. We were doing trials in Canberra…so this has been used for a very long time now, safely, with really great results. Timber industry, food industry, strawberry farmers, turf farms. It’s used consistently around the world in a range of industries. And yet, we’re still struggling to bring something, this, a product this great, to life.
CB: I’d suggest, it’s not an unfamiliar reprise, how long it takes to get these things up and running yet again, demonstrating that the technology is not enough by itself. There’s a whole effort that needs to go on beyond the science, beyond the technology, to get these things all the way through to market.
SF: Agreed. It’s a realdetailed project plan that has a huge number of facets that sit around the technology, regardless of how great the technology is. And then, EDN’s a perfect example of that, just around, the stakeholders, the markets, the regulatory bodies, all the pieces, the commercial piece that you need to convince people that there is a there’s a revenue stream in the product. There’s all these facets, then sit around that you need to deliver against for something to come to life.
CB: So, with all of that happening with regard to trying to get this product to market and all the factors that that are in play in the market, Shona, one of the things you picked up early on, and certainly we were dealing with from the CSIRO side, is the challenges around communication between ourselves and not you and I per se, but between BOC and CSIRO more broadly. And also, one of the other challenges that I stumbled across was that we didn’t really have a good set of performance obligations written out, which made it very hard for us to benchmark what you were doing and perhaps in turn, how we were doing, because we didn’t really have good agreement about what each expected of the other.
SF: And I think that’s right. And I also think on top of that, as a layer, I don’t think there was good understanding in either of the entities around what was really in those terms. So, there was a lot of urban myth, and people had kind of grown this urban myth around what was in there and what was expected. And when you and I sat and read through it, it really just wasn’t, it just wasn’t a good document for either of us. So, we worked to pull that apart and then set down the proper parameters that kind of worked. But yeah, again, at the front of this kind of relationship, if you want it to end badly, don’t have everything black and white. If you have things like, we have performance parameters black and white, you have agreements black and white, everyone’s on the same page. Everyone understands that things work really easily. But this document had kind of grown hairs. And then people were taking these hairs and making blankets out of them. And it was so extreme. And we, you and I worked really hard to pull this back to reset these parameters around, ‘Where are we today? What do we need to do next?’ And then, both of us working internally around, ‘This is now the position.’
CB: Which brings me, I think, to, I think, the famous meeting that we had, Shona.
SF: Canberra.
CB: So, in Canberra, and we had been putting a lot of time into getting the foundations repoured. So, I think, I completely agree with you, Shona, that a bit of mythology had built around this, and you and I had the opportunity to pull it apart, reset the expectations, start to reset what was written on paper, and for all intents and purposes, where everyone was, I think, in a good space.
SF: I think we were at the point of signing, right. We kind of reset ourselves. We’re in a really good place. We knew what we needed to do. We were, we’re really getting on with it. Like I said, really big steps. Yeah, this was really just a formality for us. We had the trust between our relationship rebuilt. This was just a bit of paper, that we just needed to sign.
CB: And that’s what we felt. We felt that we were really about to set sail for, meeting our ambitions. And then we got together in Canberra, where you introduced your new manager from Germany. Because at this point, just to catch the audience up, Linde Gas, which is a German gas company, Munich’s head office, they had acquired BOC. And so, as part of that acquisition, Shona and her team and the guys in Australia got swept up in all of that. And, the team from Munich were arriving to meet us, and arriving to what we thought was a ceremonial signing of this well negotiated and hard negotiated, but well negotiated agreement.
SF: Yes.
CB: And then. Things went really sideways.
SF: Very pear shaped.
CB: So, what happened?
SF: Unbeknownst to everybody, the gentleman who had taken over the business, I guess, moved into the meeting and then decided that he didn’t like the contract at the last minute, or he didn’t like the commercial terms in the contract at the last minute. And that meeting ended up very pear shaped. So again, that whole, if you don’t have that alignment in place, these projects will just don’t get delivered and don’t move forward. So, he hadn’t given anyone any visibility around his thoughts. So, like I said, we thought we were there for the signing. You know, we’re all going to pat each other on the back. We’re going to go out for a nice dinner.
CB: Yep.
SF: And this suddenly went, yeah, very, very pear shaped. So, and then it instantly brought back all the, the angst to the relationship, which I was really disappointed about. And it felt like it had suddenly, I’d suddenly lost control of something that we had a path forward on. So, I needed to step back away with that gentleman, and spend some time in Germany, and almost recommence the process, that internal stakeholder process of why we’re doing this, why we were at and how we need to step forward. And again, that that created delays that we weren’t expecting, that we’d kind of moved past and thought we were moved past. We thought we had alignment, and we just needed to readdress that. We needed to take a breath. I needed to readdress that internally and bring the business back up to the playing field where we wanted it to be, so that, again, we could get this just this contractual piece finished with CSIRO. So, everyone was happy with what they what was expected of them and what the outcome was going to be for them. And then we could get focussed back on delivering this project and doing what we do to deliver the project.
CB: I’ve got to say, Shona, you have described that as politely as you possibly could have. And I think, that it’s, I will take more liberty than you on this, in that I can remember the shock that I was in as this went sideways. And I think and I think this is a testament to the way we conducted ourselves, just to be a little bit self-indulgent for a minute, because I remember you leaving the room and me following you out, basically, politely asking what on earth was happening. Perhaps a few more expletives, just in case that we’ve got a G-rated audience. And you, were visibly upset with what had happened because you had obviously been sideswiped by developments in the room. And I think it’s a testament to the value of relationships that we were able to actually hold it together and hold our immediate teams together. And then give you as much support as we could to sort things out in headquarters in Munich. But it was it was a pretty emotionally charged couple of hours from memory.
SF: It was a difficult day. I’ll be honest, I was shocked because we’d flown down together. He’d given no indication that he had a thought in his mind, or that he, whether he had it in the room or whether, he obviously had his reasons for his changes. But I was embarrassed because we were at the finish line and then this was suddenly out of my control. I did, I stepped out of the room to take a breath. He was being very aggressive. And again…
CB: He was.
SF: Our relationship was in such a really good place. And then suddenly, this person was being very aggressive in a room that, in a negotiation, that didn’t require aggression. Like he just, it’s just not, it’s not a negotiation tool. So, I was actually really…I was really upset with his style. I mean, it’s a very…it was his style, it was his way. I don’t think he means the level of aggression that he came out with, but it was it was actually really, it was, I just needed to take a breath to get to get some sort around, ‘How was I going to regroup? How could I, how could I, kind of back him off a little bit? How could I get control back of that room?’ And then how do I, how do I make sure he doesn’t completely burn all the work we’ve done, but step him away and then guess, regroup with him to try and understand why he’d had this change of thought in the room. And what did he feel he was missing, that he needed to change something at the last minute? So, it was very difficult to be in that room and have someone behaving in a style that wasn’t acceptable to me. But he was my line manager at the time.
CB: Yeah. I think perhaps, not only meeting with the way you see the world and how you carry yourself, Shona, but as you alluded to, it was unnecessary in the context of what had gone before, over the last 12 to 24 months. That we could always have a discussion, unexpected though, that would have been. But it was an incredibly bullish approach where the contract was almost being ripped up before our very eyes. And in the context of just how much momentum BOC had now established, because we were having conversations about multiple jurisdictions. Draslovska were well and truly in the fray at this point, around the manufacturing piece. And so, it was a complete left field manoeuver. And I’m sure there might be a few people out there thinking, ‘Oh, well, hat’s just a negotiation tactic to try and get a better deal.’ And yeah, okay, I could kind of buy into that conversation, but I don’t think, tactics need to be in a context. And I don’t understand the context. And I guess, we’re about to discuss what that context was. So…
SF: I mean, I can’t talk for that gentleman. I don’t know who briefed him. I don’t know, whether he thought that wasa strategic play that he could make as the most senior person in the room. You know, I’m not really sure what his tactic was or what brought him to that point. What I could see was that we’d finally got to a point where we had a commercial agreement, we had a relationship, we had a really clear plan, we’d moved significant steps along that plan about bringing this to life, whether, with the APVMA, with multiple countries, with a supplier that was reliable and we could work with, and we could bring great value toto the business. And then, yeah, this meeting just exploded. And I could see what it was doing to the CSIRO team, yourself and the CSIRO team. And I was I was trying to control someone’s behavior and just not let this be destroyed.
CB: Yeah.
SF: So, in, and just the plan we had was we, like you said, we had some we gained so much momentum. We were really moving and bringing this to life. And then I needed to pull back and take a break. And CSIRO kindly gave me that opportunity to then turn back internally and manage the stakeholders, and bring them to the point where they were accepting of what we’d done and why we’d done it, where we’re at, and it was the right thing. And then to let us get back on it again. But it was actually really disruptive, because it was disruptive to the teams, the teams. It was very demotivating for teams because this was very visible to our teams. Like this was a very public display and it was difficult… And like you said, you and I were, I was trying to think through what his tactics were. I was trying to think about…
CB: What’s happening here?
SF: Being blind-sided, how did I now, kind of, take a breath, regroup and, and do this while he was literally sitting in the room like, this was very live.
CB: Yeah, very much so, very much so.
SF: And I just needed to step out of the room, just to take that breath and go, ‘Okay, so how do I now pull this back and stop the damage that that was being…’ Like, I say, he was literally at the point of tearing a contract up, that was, it was, it had just got really, I don’t know, he’d kind of gone from 0 to 100 with, and there was no substance to it, or there was no understanding as to why he was doing it or how he was doing it, so…
CB: Yeah.
SF: It was just around, ‘How do I get back control of this? How do I give him what he needs to calm down?’ and then manage, keep the CSIRO relationship and, but most importantly, get this project back on plan.
CB: Yeah. That was the shared objective, and the why and the how of it were, of course, the mystery to us all in the room on the day. I’m just curious, Shona, notwithstanding confidentiality and sensitivities, how did this play out with the engagement with the global management team? Because now, you’ve sort of charged with positively influencing the new global team to, almost catch them up to what is a full head of steam on the commercialisation of EDN. How did that play out and what can you share of sort of, how it unfolded with the team in Munich?
SF: It really was around. it was just, I guess, resetting that baseline of, with my communication with them around, what the original agreement had looked like, which was untenable for every party. And we’d failed in that agreement to meet our requirements. The mismatch in the relationship, the misunderstanding, like I say, the hairs that became blankets on that contract, that no one truly understood how we got to the point of resetting that, defining that into commercial terms. Like you say, it’s a really great technology, but if people don’t truly get the commercial aspect of it, they just don’t understand. And I think Munich, because they had just come in and bought us, they were looking at monetary spent and investment, and had missed the understanding of what the commercial revenue stream was going to look like. And were kind of caught up in the costs of everything. So, it was around sitting down with them with full financials and resetting their expectations. And I guess, their visibility around, ‘Yes, there’s been these sunk costs around getting this project to this point.’ You know, this is, if these are the pieces where we’re successful in, and this is where we are along the project of delivering to each of these countries. This is what the revenue stream looks like on the outside of that.’ If you’re going to launch any technology, there’s no, there’s not $1 million sitting there before you launch the technology.
CB: No, no.
SF: You know, before you launch a project, you’ve got to go and earn that revenue stream. And it’s the belief in the business that, ‘Yes’ that this, this new product, this new innovation, this new service is what the customer wants is what we can take to market. We’ve got the capability, we’ve got all the systems and policies, procedures and approvals in place. The customer is going to buy it. We’re going to deliver on it.’ So, it was literally, kind of resetting them around, and taking them through the whole project plan. Where we’d come from, why, where we were at, and then what the future looked like if we got it right, and we had to get it right.
CB: Do you reckon there was a bit of a sunk cost fallacy moment? They looked at how much you were in the hole for and said, ‘It’s too much,’ rather than, ‘Right. we’re here. How far is there left to go? How long to revenue?’
SF: 100%. They’d taken in this really short snapshot. And, it was again they just bought a company. So, they’re really looking at one side of the PNL, right. They’re looking at all the costs in the business. Like how do I take all these costs out and make this business better?
CB: Yeah, yeah.
SF: So, they were kind of looking at that as a snapshot, without the understanding of moving forward. And Linde were quite an innovative company. And the year that I left, I actually won the Innovation Award for my work on this project. So, and it was a…
CB: I love irony.
SF: And, you know, a free flight to Germany to get the award. And I’d resigned and was moving on to BOC, sorry, onto Orica. So, I didn’t even get my flight to Germany to accept my innovation award. So, we went from them, like blowing this meeting up, to quickly letting us…they did quickly let us get back on with it, so we weren’t held up for too long. I said, once I could get them through the understanding of the project plan and what the future looked like with these, with these really great products. They did because they did have a very innovative mindset. They let us go, and then at the end of my final year there, we win the Innovation Awards. So, we got there very quickly. But that day, it was a very, very challenging day for the project.
CB: Yeah. So, this is a testament to Linde, right. That they, there were there was a there was a horrible moment there. Right.
SF: Yeah.
CB: But, the system, the organisations, both the BOC South Pacific I think was the official name of the Australian operation, and CSIRO, and Linde in Munich. They obviously, we all re equilibrated and sort of caught up or sort of got back to where we were in that period. So, in June of 2014, you have been awarded the Innovation Award globally for your work on this technology, as you happen to walk out the door?
SF: Correct
CB: So this is almost a signal that everyone’s caught up to your vision, right?
SF: Yes. Yeah.
CB: The question that I have for you is, so what has happened since? We’re now eight years on, and you shared with us that Turkey has launched today. But in those eight years, whilst you’re obviously not in the heart of Linde anymore. I don’t know how well connected…I mean, I’m sure you’ve maintained your relationships with Draslovska and obviously with me and others. Where’s all this landed? Linde’s had the epiphany. They’ve arrived. This is fantastic.
SF: They did.
CB: What happened next?
SF: I left the business and moved on to Orica. Christy Harder left the business, so.
CB: Oh, okay.
SF: All their key personnel who were managing this process, moved on to other roles.
CB: All in 2014?
SF: Yeah. So, it then it then stagnated. And my understanding from my contact in Draslovska, I was talking to them through the time, because I introduced them to Orica around cyanide.
CB: Oh, okay.
SF: And there was, I mean, they’d obviously built a plant in Prague. They were manufacturing in Prague in beautiful plant that they have over in Czech and really great technology, really smart around how they were doing it, very safe. You know, their transport was amazing. They then bought the business. So, they then did…and I’m not privy to this at all. I just know they now own the products, they own the rights to the products and they’re now commercialising it around the world.
CB: Wow.
SF: So, they have a team here in Australia. And they have teams, really significant teams around the world. And they’re doing amazing things with EDN around the world.
CB: So, with that key person risk I just referred to, it then came about that the whole business ended up with Draslovska.
SF: Yes, yes. Again, they’re a business who are very innovative. They really understood the chemistry. They had an amazing plant. They had the global capability to launch this into the marketplace, both from a marketing perspective and a chemistry perspective. And they have done that over the preceding eight years. You know, they have taken EDN to market, multiple industries…it’s big in Australia. Like I say, there was a LinkedIn post today about a new, in Turkey, and I know it’s in other multiple countries. So, they do they do amazing work with this product around the world, and it’s done it justice. You know, it needed someone like Draslovska to take this to market and do really well with it. And they have. So that makes me very happy.
CB: It’s terrific that it’s, all’s well that ends well in a way. But what’s really strikes me about that, is that you’ve referred to Draslovska’s manufacturing capability. And when we go back to something we touched on earlier in our discussion today, that manufacturing competency was something that we recognise BOC didn’t have, and, well, how are we going to solve that problem? And in the end, it would appear, and hindsight’s a wonderful thing, of course, right. So, everyone makes the best decisions when they see ‘em, but when we look in hindsight, the ability to manufacture the molecule was a really key issue. And, people that look, go away and look up and look at the chemistry of it, weill rapidly understand, this molecule is difficult to handle and difficult to manufacture.
SF: Exceptionally, it was never going to happen in Australia and in reality, it was never going to happen in Asia. It really required a level of speciality, and we were lucky enough to find Draslovska who, this was their core business, they had this. But it was a key fundamental piece that again, because I think the project got so lost in both companies, and the project plan wasn’t laid out, and people didn’t truly in the beginning before, we kind of grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, it was that project plan didn’t really detail out these key roadblocks, which was approval process and manufacturing.
CB: Yeah. And that whole, that whole notion, Shona, of mapping out that process and, and a risk register, and identifying those bottlenecks, and something we talk about quite a lot these days, are assumptions and conditions for success. So, let’s write these down. What has to happen, what are our assumptions? And we can come back and test them. And I would put it to you, Shona, that neither of us even thought about that, organisationally, ‘til probably around 2010-2011.
SF: Agreed. Agreed. And like you say, that risk register for a product with this level of chemistry. So, the risk register should have been huge prior to 2010, when we kind of grabbed this. In my mind, this has been a very successful project, to be able to replace methyl bromide around the world, regardless of who did it, is a is a very successful outcome. And I’m actually pleased to have been a part of that process.
CB: Yeah, absolutely.
SF: To bring something like this to life. There were so many learnings through this around-that really poor start that had been done to this project plan that we picked up, and by no means were we perfect. There were still things we were trying to shake out and, could have done better through that. But, you take that kind of learning curve, and it really reinforces for me around that really detailed project plan, is necessary. You know that that underlying comms plan that, the risk register, understanding your key stakeholders, just having that alignment, across all facets that sit around that technology. Otherwise, it does not come to life.
CB: Yeah. I think, Shona, that like you, I’m absolutely delighted. We played a small part in bringing this to market, of what is ostensibly the best part of a 20 plus year journey, from the first experiment through the patent, through the licence, through the renegotiation, through the re-renegotiation to ultimately being in Draslovska’s hands. So, I think that your thoughts there around communication and the criticality of it in getting these complex tech transfer programs executed is really a great insight, from what has been quite a case study on how things unfold and how things unfold non-linearly in the tech transfer world. So, Shona, I’d like to thank you for joining us on the podcast. It has been absolutely fantastic talking this through with you after so many years. And thank you again.
SF: My absolute pleasure, Cameron. It was nice, kind of reliving our journey together. It’s been fantastic. So, thank you so much.