Call To Action: comprehensive
web-site
A sophisticated, interactive web-site has
been set-up to help manage and support the current SBIR Reauthorization
effort which is setting up to be a major fight.
http://www.inknowvation.com/Call_To_Action_SBIR_2008/
Ever a work in progress, we would encourage you to make use of -
and add to - the various resources that are being made available
there.
Senate Small Business: priority focus
A version of this email is in preparation for all SBIR-STTR currently
active and recently involved awardees - about 8000 firms. However, you're
receiving this as a priority because one of your Senators sits on the Senate
Small Business Committee -- or both if you're from Louisiana -- which is now
considering the form of the bill that will address SBIR Reauthorization
following passage by the House of H.R. 5819 so convincingly on April 23,
2008.
These Members need to hear from you.
More perhaps than ever before, the political future of SBIR lies primarily
in the hands of those of you who are program participants. We can help and are
able to do a considerable amount of the behind-the-scenes grunt work -- giving
direction and support, coordinating effort, providing in-depth data and subject
focused analyses etc - but it is YOUR involvement that will almost certainly
make the difference.
No-one should under-estimate just how important the BIO-NVCA lobby victory
was in achieving passage of H.R.5819 with such an huge majority. Major progress
has been made towards capturing the SBIR-STTR programs primarily for VC-funded
firms. They have the momentum.
One of the principal BIO-NVCA proponents - Mr Bond (R.MO) - sits on the
Senate Small Business Committee. He formerly chaired the Committee and now
sits on the powerful Appropriations Committee. He and other Members who have
bought into the BIO-NVCA argument - whatever that is - have given every
indication that they will resist passage of any bill to reauthorize SBIR that
does not include similar VC advantage.
We are in for a major fight ... but if SBIR has been important to you,
please seriously consider getting directly involved. Neither you - not the
country- can afford the desecration of one of the most important pieces of
technology and economic legislation ever enacted.
Shifting the subject of discussion:
From many years of SBIR advocacy experience and lots of political
engagement in that time, it would be my considered opinion that, to stand any
real chance of countering the now firmly entrenched NVCA-BIO position, there
needs to be a major shift in what defines this debate. For far too
long, the VC community have been allowed to set the agenda as one which focuses
to nuances of SBIR eligibility. It is clear that they have consistently managed
to win that argument. Those taking the opposing position have made
repeated concessions. BIO-NVCA have repeatedly accepted what has been
offered ..... and have given nothing back in return.
No consideration seems to have be given by anyone to what happens when a
small minority of firms - currently about 11-12 percent of awardees - is
permitted to shut-out almost everyone else. It is important that this
debate be re-cast to one that addresses the fundamental under-pinning, rationale
and ongoing importance of SBIR-STTR. As some far more politically savvy
and astute players than I have said before
"It's about the economy,
stupid!"
This is a discussion of importance. The SBIR community individually
and collectively have had major economic impact. We can use our
comprehensive databases to provide solid evidence of that.
That economic impact argument must be at the heart of what it said to
Members and how you interact with them - in DC and in the District.
Given the current state of the economy and the urgent
need for increased support of technology development as THE major driver of
job creation and sustainable economic growth, it is nothing short of
unconscionable that the VC community would set about so systematically to
address only their own agenda, to serve only their own needs by trying to
exclude all but their own from access to resources needed to support important
high-risk technology development effort.
BIO-NVCA should be held to account
for the
adverse economic impact that will
inevitably be felt
- most acutely in those areas of
this country that can least afford it -
if their special access version of
SBIR-STTR becomes the norm.
As the current ad campaign being run by ASTRA (Alliance
for Science and Technology Research in America) proclaims "Innovation is
America's Economic Heartbeat:" SBIR Awardees in all their variations are an
integral part of the Innovation Community. The strength and value of SBIR
has been - and must continue to be - its diversity. Individually and
collectively small firms involved in SBIR have had - and are having - major
economic and technical impact.
It can be solidly demonstrated
that these contributions
and this achievement is NOT
peculiar
to those that happen to fit the VC
profile.
You can make a difference:
Our information is that, despite very short notice - less than 24 hours in
most cases - many hundreds of you responded with emails and calls to House
members after receiving an earlier urgent alert we sent to all currently SBIR
involved firms. You told your Members that the bill they saw listed to
reauthorize SBIR - a long-time successful and effective program that many
understood to be very popular and important - was not what it seemed. You
pointed out the seriously flawed content of that bill and the under-handed
efforts that were being made quietly to get the bill passed by a voice vote.
That outpouring of concern from the SBIR community certainly scuttled the
effort by bill proponents to achieve House passage quietly by voice vote.
However, this extraordinarily well choreographed legislative effort to hijack
the SBIR program was an object lesson in how to achieve passage of a
seriously flawed piece of legislation. We were too late.
Ironically involving almost entirely Members from areas of the country that
have typically not done very well in SBIR and, even more puzzling, those which
have minimal VC presence in their states, we listened to presentations in favor
of H.R. 5819, extolling the virtues of small business and of particular SBIR
Awardees in their districts.
- No-one spoke to the fact that if fully implemented, the lion's share of
available SBIR-STTR dollars will be taken by only be firms which fit the
classic VC model. These are that very important sub-set of firms which
are addressing very large market opportunities, with the declared objective of
achieving a liquidity event - an IPO or M&A - in a 3-5 year time
horizon. They have an important place in SBIR - few who understand the
SBIR program would argue otherwise - but not the the exclusion of everyone
else!
- No-one indicated that every other SBIR involved firm - regardless of the
importance of their technology and capabilities - will be shut-out almost
completely; nor that that described most of the SBIR awardees in their States
including the stories of those they referenced in their comments
- Anyone who had the expertise and understanding to articulate the inherent
flaws of H.R. 5819 and to speak in opposition was not allowed any time on the
floor.
Many long-time SBIR supporters in the House opted to vote for the bill -
concerned that if this bill failed, that with a September 30 sunset and so
strong a VC-favorable position being taken by the House Small Business
Committee, that there would not be opportunity to bring in another
reauthorization bill in time.
NVCA-BIO proponents were in control. Let us make sure that
there is not a repeat performance in the Senate.
--
Ann Eskesen
Innovation Development
Institute
45 Beach Bluff Avenue Suite 300
Swampscott, MA
01907-1542
_____
Voice: (781)
595-2920
Fax: (781) 593-4660
Email:
ann.eskesen@inknowvation.com
Web:
http://www.inknowvation.com