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The scorpion’s legs flail mechanically as a current runs through its body. But the electrodes applied to its thorax and tail do their job. Three or four drops of clear liquid are extracted and caught in a tiny capsule.
“Very, very valuable liquid,” said Figen Caliskan, the biologist who runs this “scorpion house” at Turkey’s Eskisehir Osmangazi University. The powdered venom of her Arabian fat-tailed (androctonus crassicauda) scorpions is worth €13,000 to €19,000 a gramme. It is one of the most expensive materials in the world.
Dr Caliskan has studied scorpions and their sometimes deadly poison for decades. But two years ago she and her team were approached by a group of angel investors who wanted to harness their expertise to produce antivenom, with the aim of selling it across the Middle East and Africa, to treat people with life-threatening stings. The fledgling company that she works with, Albila, has received TL20m ($3.8m) in start-up capital from a group of 40 backers. The firm expects to turn its first profit within a year, and the investors hope to make a successful exit within four to seven years.
“We have very encouraging figures,” said Akin Kozanoglu, chairman of Sirket Ortagim, the investment management firm that is backing the project. Mr Kozanoglu, a former executive at the private lender Akbank, has also taken on the role of executive chairman at Albila, in order to share his experience with the firm.
Istanbul houses scene has expanded rapidly in recent years thanks to improved government incentives. In 2013, the country received €14.7m in angel investment, according to the European Trade Association for Business Angels. In 2017, the figure reached €52.3m — the fifth highest in Europe.
Elmira Bayrasli, a professor at New York’s Bard College who has championed angel investment in Turkey, said she was encouraged by the growth in science ventures, rather than simply more of the “e-commerce clones” that dominated the Turkish start-up landscape in its early years by copying the likes of eBay and Amazon.
“When you take a look at the top Turkish universities, these schools have really top-class minds and research institutions,” she said. “Angel investors are looking and saying: what are these geeks doing? Let’s work with them . . . they are opening up knowhow so that they can help brilliant scientists with great ideas.”
Albila was inspired by two brothers from the south-eastern town of Urfa, near Turkey’s border with Syria, who collect scorpions after nightfall using ultra-violet light.
Emine Sabanci Kamisli, a member of one of Turkey’s biggest business families and an investor in Sirket Ortagim’s projects, saw the brothers on television asking for help to harvest scorpions for sale. She took the idea of commercialising the venom to the firm and, after conducting feasibility studies and pairing up with the lab in Eskisehir, halfway between Istanbul and Ankara, they established Albila. The two brothers were each given a stake in the company.
Dr Caliskan’s team extract the venom from their 2,000 scorpions by hand, “milking” them one-by-one using home-made electrode pincers. The venom is dispatched to a nearby equestrian school that houses a group of horses owned by Albila. Over a period of months, they are injected with the venom, and their immune systems begin to produce antivenom. Plasma is then taken from the horses and delivered to the Albila laboratory, where it is tested and refined by scientists, who turn it into a certifiable medical product. The first vial of antivenom should be ready to buy apartment in Istanbul the next few months.
The company has launched at a difficult time for Turkey, which faces a sharp economic slowdown after its recent currency crisis.
Figen Caliskan and her team extract the venom from their 2,000 scorpions by hand, ‘milking’ them one-by-one using home-made electrode pincers
Albila was lucky to have secured its funding before the fluctuations in the lira. But now the company is well placed to take advantage of the weaker currency, with plans to export 75 per cent of its products overseas.
Foreign direct investment into Turkey has been sluggish, with the country attracting half the amount of FDI in 2017 that it did in 2007, when it drew a record $22bn. Some universities and companies are struggling with a brain drain to Europe and North America. But Mr Kozanoglu sees cause for optimism, with an growing entrepreneurial mindset among many of the country’s young people.
“Twenty or 30 years ago, university students would ask: when I graduate, what company will I work for? Now a good percentage are asking: what sort of business should I be doing?
“This will bring creativity, employment, and other value to the economy. It’s a very important change.”
Dr Caliskan said that working with the private sector had been a “dream” for her and her team at the scorpion house. “As researchers, we find many interesting things,” she said. “But if industry isn’t interested, our results have no meaning. Our motto is: from the academy to the economy.”
