An Assessment of the SBIR Program at the National Institutes of Health (2009) / Chapter Skim
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From page 10... ...
. The NRC Committee assessing the SBIR program was not asked to consider if SBIR should exist or not -- Congress has affirmatively decided this question on three occasions.3 Rather, the Committee was charged with providing assessment-based findings to improve public understanding of the program as well as recommendations to improve the program's effectiveness.
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From page 11... ...
In practice, agencies have developed different approaches to facilitate SBIR grantees' transition to commercial viability; not least among them are additional SBIR awards. Previous NRC research has shown that firms have different objectives in applying to the program.
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From page 12... ...
102-564) , which reauthorized the SBIR program until September 30, 2000, doubled the set-aside rate to 2.5%.7 This increase in the percentage of R&D funds allocated to the program was accompanied by a stronger emphasis on encouraging the commercialization of SBIR-funded technologies.8 Legislative language explicitly highlighted commercial potential as a criterion for awarding SBIR awards.
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From page 13... ...
This methodology was then reviewed and approved by an independent National Academies panel of experts.11 Information about the program was also gathered through interviews with SBIR program administrators and during two major conferences where SBIR officials were invited to describe program operations, challenges, and accomplishments.12 These conferences highlighted the important differences in each agency's SBIR program's goals, practices, and evaluations. The conferences also explored the challenges of assessing such a diverse range of program objectives and practices using common metrics.
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From page 14... ...
True innovation, Bordogna noted, can spur the search for new knowledge and create the context in which the next generation of research identifies new frontiers. This non-linearity, illustrated in Figure 1-2, makes it difficult to rate the efficiency of SBIR program.
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From page 15... ...
The task of measuring outcomes is made harder because companies that have garnered SBIR awards can also merge, fail, or change their name before a product reaches the market. In addition, principal investigators or other key individuals can change firms, carrying their knowledge of an SBIR project with them.
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From page 16... ...
As a point of comparison, Gail Cassell, Vice President for Scientific Affairs at Eli Lilly, has noted that only one in ten innovative products in the biotechnology industry will turn out to be a commercial success.16 Similarly, venture capital funds often achieve considerable commercial success on only two or three out of twenty or more investments.17 In setting metrics for SBIR projects, therefore, it is important to have a realistic expectation of the success rate for competitive awards to small firms investing in promising but unproven technologies. Similarly, it is important to have some understanding of what can be reasonably expected -- that is, what constitutes "success" for an SBIR award, and some understanding of the constraints and opportunities successful SBIR awardees face in bringing new products to market.
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From page 17... ...
Appendix B and C provide the template and results of the NRC surveys of SBIR Phase I and Phase II projects. Appendix D presents illustrative case studies of firms participating in the NIH SBIR program.
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NRC STUDY FINDINGS A The NIH SBIR program is making significant progress in achieving the Congressional goals for the program.
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