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In this issue:


Ties between drugmakers and university researchers getting ever closer

It's no secret that big pharma companies and university research labs are getting cozier these days. Big dollar sponsored research deals have become commonplace, and while the funding is critical, changes in how -- and how deeply -- universities and drug makers interact are accompanying these research windfalls. Drugmakers are looking for more accountability and collaboration than ever before. Academic institutions, meanwhile, are taking a more targeted approach to research to make sure their sponsors are not disappointed -- a trend that is accelerating as universities look to diversify funding streams amid dwindling government grants. The end result is a new breed of industry-academia alliance that closely connects researchers from both sides of the fence.

"The approach 20 years ago was pharma gives a chunk of change, and then they have the rights to license any discoveries," says Laurie H. Glimcher, a professor at Harvard Medical School who also sits on the board of Bristol-Myers Squibb and recently teamed up with Merck to work toward new osteoporosis treatments. "I don't think that really works anymore. It has become apparent to many people in the private sector and the academic sector that closer ties between industry and academia are the wave of the future." Rudolph L. Leibel, head of molecular genetics and co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center, offers a similar assessment. "I think the time is right for a greater emphasis on bringing together both intellectual and physical tools in a coordinated way," says Leibel, who helps steer a research collaboration between the medical center and AstraZeneca that is focused on metabolic diseases. He believes the move from the bench to the bedside can occur more quickly if researchers on either end of the spectrum -- academics with expertise in establishing promising new targets and companies with compound libraries and other critical but expensive research tools -- would only work together.

Typical of the new model of industry-university linkage is a deal AstraZeneca signed this spring with Harvard to fund Glimcher's osteoporosis research. The agreement has the trappings of typical sponsored research arrangements: Merck hands over money and has the right to license molecules that come out of the research. Not so typical, however, is that scientists from Merck and Harvard are working together to discover new signaling pathways and explore the function of a protein that mediates bone growth. "Merck is using their enormous resources to help us assemble huge expression arrays and integrate the signaling pathways in samples we give them," Glimcher says. The two lead Harvard scientists on the project interact with Merck almost daily, she adds. The team gets together once a month, and all participants have access to a virtual meeting room where they can post data.

Other newfangled agreements are coming in all shapes and sizes. In one AstraZeneca deal with Columbia, for example, the drug company and the university are collaborating to develop new drugs for diabetes and obesity. Collaborations follow a set pattern: a Columbia scientist makes a proposal and then is teamed with an AstraZeneca scientist. Together, they develop a line of inquiry that includes crafting a research plan, assigning responsibilities to each partner's lab, and determining methods of communication. For some projects, the research begins at Columbia and later shifts to AstraZeneca. For others, activities start jointly and can include deeper contact, even having a company scientist on-site at the university. At St. Louis-based Washington University, a 20-year relationship with Pfizer has evolved into something more like a joint venture than a old school sponsored research agreement. Scientists across a range of disciplines make short research proposals related to immunology and inflammation. The proposals are reviewed by a joint steering committee, and the academic researchers are then paired with Pfizer scientists to write a full proposal. "There is complete openness -- no walls, no barriers," Seibert says. "The ideas develop collaboratively, and the focus often changes when our scientists come together to the table." Go to: Chemical & Engineering News

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U of Texas launching entrepreneur-in-residence program to boost start-ups

The University of Texas has become the latest in a growing list of universities creating entrepreneur-in-residence program, in which experienced start-up executives scour the school's wealth of research discoveries to find breakthroughs that could become companies. Before the end of the year, UT expects to hire two or three executives for six-month stints in the program. The goal is to accelerate the school's ability to turn its research into start-ups and generate more licensing revenue. The executives, who will be paid $5,500 a month, will be charged with identifying opportunities and developing business plans around those with the most promise. If a plan wins preliminary approval from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, they will be paid a $25,000 bonus. "We will be the first university in the country doing it this way," said Neil Iscoe, director of UT's Office of Technology Commercialization, who developed the idea. "We have invited the entrepreneurs inside our tent, so they can be inside our system and then take things outside."

Clint Bybey , managing director for Arch Venture Partners, calls the program "a great thing to do. The idea is to have a business-minded person that is looking at technology, finding leading researchers and bringing the perspective of the marketplace to bear on research ideas." The program is a swan song for Iscoe, who has headed the university's TTO for five years and will be leaving the job once a replacement is found. During his tenure, UT's licensing revenue has tripled to $11.5 million in the just-completed 2008 fiscal year. UT now owns part of 36 technology start-ups, including 10 created in the past year. Go to: Austin-American Statesman

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Capture every dollar you're due with an effective royalty audit program

In this tough economy and with TTO budgets tightening, you simply can't afford to let royalty dollars slip through your fingers. Yet without an effective audit program in place, you may be losing literally tens of thousands of dollars -- or more -- due to under-reporting. Here's your chance to get the practical know-how you need to begin an audit program, bolster your existing efforts, and recoup much-needed dollars your university is rightfully due. Join audit expert Dan Burns of Daniel Burns Associates for an audioconference event that promises to bring you a tremendous return-on-investment: Royalty Audits: Are You Getting What You Bargained For? scheduled for December 18, from 1:00-2:30 p.m. eastern. In this how-to session, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the most common and hard-to-spot areas where under-reporting occurs, how the audit process works, and how to proceed once you’ve received the results and identified discrepancies. To register of for more information, CLICK HERE.

Note: This is the last day to register for the live webinar, Selling University IP In Cyberspace: Best Practices In Web-Based Marketing For Tech Transfer Professionals, Thursday, November 20, 2008, 1:00-2:30 p.m. eastern. For full details or to register, CLICK HERE.

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Vanderbilt TTO launches e-commerce site

Vanderbilt University has launched a new e-commerce web site that allows users to purchase innovative software, courseware and other digital products over the Internet. The site features technologies developed exclusively at school, and is modeled after similar "click-through" licensing and sales efforts developed at the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota. The online store will initially sell six university-developed products and will add more soon, reports Peter Rousos, the Vanderbilt TTO's senior business development executive. “After investigating similar web sites, we have determined that we are one of the first universities to set up an e-commerce site of this type,” said Rousos. “Hundreds of patents have been issued to Vanderbilt and the university has entered into numerous license agreements. We realized that a number of them were suitable for online sales.”

Initial online product offerings include:

  • “Play Nicely,” a video series developed by a Vanderbilt pediatrician that offers advice to parents, teachers and day-care instructors on how to deal with and modify anti-social and violent behavior among preschoolers.
  • Three products designed to aid social scientists involved in observational studies, two of which allow the researchers to replace traditional paper-and-pencil methods for recording data with personal digital assistants, which link to computers where the data can be analyzed. A third product collects observational data from audio or video recordings.
  • ListVUe is a software tool that aids professionals responsible for determining whether the export of certain sensitive devices and information is consistent with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Commerce Control List.
  • OLINDA/EXM is a software program for doctors and researchers who work with radiopharmaceuticals. It calculates the radiation doses that various organs will receive when different radioactive drugs are administered in given amounts.

Go to: VUCast. To take a look at the new online store, go to Vanderbilt Innovations.

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Yissum licenses new compound aimed at treatment of inflammatory bowel disease

Yissum Ltd., the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has signed a worldwide exclusive license agreement with BioLineRx Ltd.to develop and commercialize BL-5040, a new drug candidate for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including colitis and Crohn's disease. Rights to the compound were also obtained from collaborating institution Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. BL-5040 utilizes a mutated version of leptin acting as an antagonist with anti-inflammatory properties. Leptin is a hormone that plays an important role in regulating inflammation immunity, as well as appetite control. Animal studies have shown the drug can block inflammation without discernible side-effects. "IBD belongs to a large family of diseases caused by the unleashed activity of our own immune system. BL-5040 addresses the very mechanism causing the disease and therefore has the potential to be a breakthrough in the treatment of inflammatory diseases such as colitis and Crohn's," stated Nava Swersky Sofer, Yissum's CEO. Approximately 1 in 500 people suffer from IBD. The condition has few specific treatments available. Even so, sales of existing drugs that address IBD symptoms are estimated at $1.8 billion, though none of the current treatments offer complete relief, according to Yissum. Go to: BioSpace

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Princess Sumaya calls for establishing 'Jordanian Innovation System'

At a tech transfer conference in Amman, Jordan's Princess Samaya gave a royal push to that country's fledgling research commercialization efforts, citing "an urgent need now … to establish a Jordanian Innovation System." Noting an abundance of research talent and infrastructure already in place, she urged research leaders there to begin thinking big. “What we want to hear is that the next Google, Cisco, Nokia and Samsung is coming from this region -- Arab region -- and I have no doubts about the capabilities of our talent and I believe this is inevitable. What we lack is a system that puts things in the right order,” Princess Sumaya said, kicking off the fourth annual Conference on Technology Commercialization, “Technology Transfer Research and Development and IP Commercialization, Policies, and Investment."

“Whether it is a blue ocean strategy, diffusions of innovations, a Bayh-Dole Act, intellectual property law enforcement, technology readiness level, or others, the way ahead is clear and there is no better time than now to move ahead," she emphasized. "The process should include the entire community and specifically a myriad of research institutions, governments and even large multinationals including economists, engineers, lawyers, marketers and scientists.” Princess Sumaya singled out the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE), part of El Hassan Science City, as a promising model for nurturing entrepreneurism in the academic community and fomenting a knowledge-based economy in Jordan.

Speaking at the same conference, past AUTM president John Fraser, assistant VP for research and economic development at Florida State University, called on Jordan to benefit from the American experience in tech transfer and engage aggressively in developing innovations from academia, spinning out companies from university research, creating clear policies and procedures, standardizing IP agreements, and establishing measurement systems to assess progress. Go to: ag-IP-news and ag-IP-news (2) .

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UT-San Antonio launches niche incubator focused on cyber security

Incubators have become a staple of university innovation and economic development efforts, but a new facility at the University of Texas-San Antonio may signal a trend toward incubators specializing in technology niches. The university has launched a new incubator attached to its Institute for Cyber Security and hopes to attract companies in that technology space to create a specialized cluster of new start-ups. The first two tenants are Denim Labs, a spinoff of the San Antonio-based Denim Group, and SafeMashups Inc., a university spinoff. The incubator will supply start-ups with office space, staff expertise, support with patent applications, and research and development resources. In return, the schools gets an ownership stake in any new venture created. The companies are expected to stay in the system for up to 18 months before spinning out on their own, said Ravi Ganesan, the Institute for Cyber Security’s director of commercialization. Go to: My San Antonio

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TTOs reap the benefits of student-run investment funds

Some technology transfer offices have an additional weapon in their arsenal to develop and commercialize new technologies: technology-focused investment funds managed by entrepreneurial MBA candidates. These funds typically provide limited pre-seed,
seed, and early-stage venture capital funding. Cornell University’s Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CCTEC) and its partnership with Big Red Ventures, an investment fund managed by Cornell students, is a prime example. Alan Paau, MBA, PhD, CCTEC’s executive director and vice provost for technology transfer and economic development, says the benefits for TTOs can be significant, including:

  • Access to capital. A student-run fund can offer “relatively local, relatively friendly access to capital for the TTO and the entrepreneurs who are trying to commercialize a technology or get a business off the ground,” says Steve Peck, a Cornell MBA candidate and Big Red’s CEO.
  • Access to management talent. “Interacting with Big Red Ventures gives us a conduit to recruit management talent," Paau notes. The entrepreneurial MBA student involved in the fund "may become the CEO or interim CEO of a start-up,” he says.
  • An enhanced entrepreneurial culture. “The benefit to the university in helping to build an entrepreneurial culture far exceeds the [value] of deals we do,” stresses Tom Porter, managing director of the student-run Frankel Commercialization Fund at the University of Michigan. “For each of the three deals that the Frankel Fund actually has concluded, we probably spent a fair amount of time on six to eight additional ideas. So a number of individuals or groups have gotten significant exposure to our students and learned what it takes to prepare an idea for an investment.”

A detailed article on student-run investment funds, including specific steps and best practices used in establishing one, appears in the November issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

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Innovation of the Week: Singapore institute licenses self-cleaning paint technology

The Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology has licensed a patented nanotechnology designed to create self-cleaning paints, which will get rid of accumulated dirt on their own. The process created by the Institute, part of the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), produces a photo-catalytic self-cleaning coating using titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Exposure of the coating to UV light from a fluorescence source or the sun causes selective oxidation at its surface, causing the self-cleaning effect. Exploit Technologies -- A*STAR's commercialization arm -- will execute a license for the technology with Singapore-based paint and chemical producer Haruna Pte Ltd. tomorrow during Exploit's TechLicensing Fair 2008. In a release announcing completion of the deal, Exploit officials say the cost saving potential of self-cleaning coatings is immense, given that a typical commercial building has its surface washed at least once a year. Other commercial structures such as shopping malls may pay for cleanings as often as once a quarter, with each wash costing between S$10,000 to S$50,000 (about $6,600 to $33,000 US), depending on the size of the building. Go to: Exploit Technologies

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Learn how to value your life sciences portfolio from discovery to start-up

The co-founders of Avance, Basel GmbH, a life sciences valuation firm with offices in the U.S. and Switzerland, have published a guide to life sciences valuation that contains useful information for business development and licensing professionals as well as TTOs, researchers and investors. In Valuation in Life Sciences: A Practical Guide (Springer, 2008, 334 pp.), Boris Bogdan and Ralph Villiger, explain how to translate characteristics of drug and medical device development into valuation, and provide compelling industry data. After examining the theory of valuation, including discounted cash flow and real options models, the authors provide real-life examples to demonstrate the process by which products and businesses can be valued at all stages of their development, from projects and patents to licenses, firms, and stocks. Bogdan and Villiger emphasize the practical use and realistic outcomes of proposed methods by including many hands-on examples, including some complex licensing and company structures.

Rudolf Gygax of Basel, Switzerland-based Gygax and former managing director of Novartis Venture Funds, previewed the book last fall in Nature Biotechnology [2007;Vol. 25(9)], writing, “Valuation in Life Sciences: A Practical Guide opens up the black box and describes, step by step, a relatively simple procedure for quantitative valuation in life sciences. The book guides the reader through the recommended procedure of quantitative valuation [and] is recommended to those who would like to acquire a profound understanding of quantitative valuation and use a simple spreadsheet approach [to] their own cases.” View the table of contents and read excerpts from the book at: Valuation in Life Sciences (via Google Book Search).


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