FOI2025/00130: Commercial income from LMB
Case reference FOI2025/00130
Received 1 February 2025
Published 12 June 2025
Request
Request received: 01 February 2025
I'm writing to request for more details on commercial income from the MRC LMB and a potential breakdown/ contribution of the £700 million income mentioned on their website.
Response
Response sent: 11 April 2025
I can confirm that UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) holds some information relevant to your request. Please see the information attached.
The revenues of £700 million of commercial income indicated on the Laboratory of Molecular Biology[1] (LMB) website are the result of commercial agreements between UKRI/MRC and a range of companies which are commercially confidential. We are unable to locate the specific document on which this figure was based, however Annex 1 provides information on income generated from the licensing of various technologies, as reported by the LMB in quinquennial review (QQR) for the period 2005 to 2015 in document ‘FOI2025/00130_Annex 1’.
The data extracted from QQR reports have been anonymised as the information falls under the exemption at Section 43(2) of the FOIA. This exemption is used where disclosure would likely result in a person's (an individual, a company, the public authority itself, or any other legal entities) commercial interests being prejudiced.
This is a qualified exemption, meaning that a test was carried out to determine whether the public interest outweighs the requirement for commercial confidentiality.
Factors in favour of releasing the information:
· There is a general public interest in the disclosure of this information to ensure transparency and openness of a public organisation.
Factors in favour of withholding the information:
· Disclosure would lead to loss of trust that UKRI respect confidentiality of commercially sensitive information and this would affect UKRI’s relationship with the stakeholders it collaborates with in the commercialisation of new discoveries and technologies. Disclosure would likely result in stakeholders being less open and collaborative with UKRI, openness that is essential to maximise the benefit of opportunities to commercialise the work of the LMB.
· The stability and continuity of the LMB depends on this trust to be maintained which will ensure UKRI continues to work with commercial companies to develop new technologies and ensure the furtherance of best practice in research commercialisation. This is essential for the efficient and effective functioning of these activities.
· Releasing the names of inventions and the individuals or companies responsible would enable identification of the company that has taken a license to the technology, and it would be possible to work out the financial terms of the licence. This would harm the commercial interests of these companies and negatively impact the licensing of technologies by undermining the confidentiality of the system. Disclosing names of inventors would equally allow identification of the technology the income was related to further undermining commercial confidentiality.
Having taken these arguments into consideration, UKRI have concluded that at this time the balance of the public interest lies in favour of applying the above exemption and withholding the identified information.
Documents
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