Innovation : techno-push or market-driven ?

Having worked for ten years in the research department of the CEA’s material sciences, Christophe Bureau created two start-ups based on the technology of electro-grafting in the microelectronic and the biomedical sectors. He raised eight million Euros after three capital pools between 2001 and 2008. AlchiMedics’ technology was used on humans at the end of 2007 and approved in 2010 in China, where the first product was launched in January 2011. Having succeeded in making a profit from a technological innovation, Christophe Bureau is now developing at Becton Dickinson an approach in which innovation is guided by market forces, irrespective of whether there is a real client in view or not, as opposed to an approach driven by technology (‘techno-push’). He is calling for conditions regarding spin-offs in France to change, as currently only techno-push based approaches (which are risky and whose profitability is hard to measure) benefit from the attention and support of institutions and financial backers.