7 Technology Transfer Officer Tips For Tough Economic Times

There is no doubt that these are tough economic times. Unemployment is high and credit is tight. Key indicates show that is the worse economy in a generation. Many technology transfer offices have seen potential business partners reduce their innovation portfolios and expenditures. This coupled with a reduction in funding sources, from grants and investors to university sources are blowing the technology transfer research commercialization efforts into the perfect storm.

There are difficulties and challenges, but these times also create opportunities. Here are seven tips to help your technology transfer office succeed in these tough economic times.

1. Maintain a list of problems that are relevant to the research and technologies in the pipeline.

Technology transfer offices typically get involved in research commercialization efforts late in the research and testing process. Get involved earlier in the process and start developing a list of problems of which the research can be applied.

This is really an early brainstorming exercise. Don’t just talk to the researchers. Get business input from those who are not involved with the research or the research teams. Independent ideas can be worth their weight in gold.

2. Develop long-term business relationships.

”Dig the well before you are thirsty.”
-Chinese Proverb

Start developing business relationships with business leaders from a wide range of industries. Do this even before you have any applicable research or solutions for them. These relationships will pay off in two ways.

• You will have a better understanding of the types of challenges that these businesses face.
• When you do have promising research technologies and solutions you already have a relationship with the business or their contacts.

3. Pair researchers with business mentors.

Researchers think like researchers. Business people think like business people. Getting the two to communicate with each other versus talking to each other is a common technology transfer office challenge.

Providing a business mentor to promising research leaders will help alleviate this common problem. This continuous conduit will go a lot further than a long forgotten entrepreneurial seminar.

4. Develop alternative commercialization strategies early.

Good business people know that there is always a chance that their efforts may fail. Technology transfer officers know this too. Unfortunately, many researchers and inventors do not think about this, much less plan for it.

Most inventors think that their invention is world changing and worth millions. They have visions of establishing a company based on their research or technology, selling it for millions, and retiring in the lap of luxury.

The truth of the matter is that nine out of ten spin offs and startups will fail. You, can as the technology transfer officer can improve these odds.

I sit on the advisory board for some start up focused investment funds. One of the strategies that we have developed recently is to go for the big distribution partnering deal with large companies. When that doesn’t work – we find out why and have alternative proposals available.

This alternative could be limited distribution agreements on licensing deals. It really doesn’t matter what the alternative is. What does matter is that you get to stay in the game and get a return on the sunk costs.

5. Reduce risks for all involved.

It wasn’t that long ago that many universities shunned the entire technology transfer process. They wanted their faculty teaching and doing research, not commercializing their intellectual property. My, how times have changed.

Now universities love the revenue that comes from royalties and equity distributions and sales that are associated with intellectual property commercialization. Businesses are always looking for a competitive advantage and right now innovation is the soup de jour, except for one thing …RISK!

In order to get more businesses interested in potential technology look for new ways to reduce their potential risks. Right now cash is king. Instead of negotiating a lower royalty percentage, offer your potential licensor a deferred royalty agreement at a higher percentage. This is the business innovator’s version of “no interest payments for 3 years”.

This approach allows the business to conserve cash today and the university to reap more money in the long run. It’s better than the technology sitting on the shelf waiting to become obsolete.

6. Teach bootstrapping to your startups.

All technology startups need money. That is a known fact. The truth is that many could get by with less money than they think that they need. There in lies the art of bootstrapping. Bootstrapping basically means to start and operate a business without lots of investment funds. It requires the entrepreneur to focus on sales and to hold fixed costs to an absolute minimum.

Bootstrapping requires a unique mindset that few lead researchers turned entrepreneurs can relate to. It takes a special entrepreneur to be able to successfully bootstrap a business.
Help your lead researchers and startup teams. Get some experienced bootstrappers on your advisory and consulting teams and pass the knowledge on to your startups.

7. Partner with other technology transfer offices.

Technology transfer offices provide a valuable service to both the university and their research communities. They play a vital role in the economic development of their respective communities and states. Unlike many organizations involved in the invention commercialization process they do not compete.

Some technology transfer offices such as Stanford and MIT are the envy of their peers, however most technology transfer offices do not reside in a geographic area that harbors entrepreneurship in its DNA.

Partnering with other technology transfer offices offers many unique benefits that cannot be found though other means. It opens up dialogue and support for represented research and technologies to new areas and new commercialization ideas. It develops relationships with other potential business partners and fosters potential research synergies.

Targeted TTO partnerships can lead to specific research pairing with higher degrees of commercialization potential. This focused effort will, in the long run, yield a high degree of return on investment.

These 7 technology transfer officer tips can help you reduce your operating costs and increase your revenue generation success rate. It’s a win for society, the researcher, the business community, the university, and YOU!

About Technology Transfer Agents

There are no direct financial fruits from merely owning a patent. There are a lot of patents and products which are lying useless in federally funded universities and research laboratories across the country. A patent or product must be adopted, purchased or leased by a corporation for development.

The Technology Transfer Agents are present to complete the cycle of innovation by bringing to the market, products and services resulting from federally funded research institutions. They are also considered the catalysts for innovation.

The only reason for being a transfer agent is to make federally funded research available to private industry, for discovering new applications for new inventions, technologies, and products. To return royalties and revenue back to the research agency.

More than 700 laboratories and research centers apply their research and development skills and expertise for the advancement of science and represent almost all federal departments and agencies- conducting over $100 billion in research and development annually and employ more than 100,000 scientists.

Their science makes our lives safer, more convenient, and more fulfilling from medicine to transportation to communications, these research facilities investigate everything that is known and extract knowledge from the previously unknown. These scientists’ efforts, desires, and creativity are unparalleled.

But all of this work is for nothing if the talents of the genius are not unleashed. It is really necessary that the mind-blowing developments happening behind laboratory doors be transferred from the logical existence to practical existence.

To take full advantage on the nation’s investment in federal research, the expertise and technology should be brought to the marketplace, which not only enhances the nation’s socioeconomic well-being in the global marketplace, but security and prominence is also secured.

This transfer is accomplished through the outstanding work of scientists, agency representatives, and technology transfer professionals. This achievement requires a vision, a plan, and a methodology.

In 2003, LipidLabs acquired and commercialized the Advanced Lipoprotein Fingerprinting Screening technology that allows doctors to better identify health risks. After maturing the technology, it was sold it to Spectracell Laboratories, Inc. for $354,000 and retained a royalty interest, which is then distributed to the prior shareholders as a dividend.

Built on the strength of success, Lipid continues to capitalize, keep alive and deliver the next generation of technology from R&D Facilities like Texas A&M to the marketplace.

LipidLabs, Inc, partners with Fortune 500 companies, small enterprises, universities, and research institutions bringing innovations to market. Finding or funding private and publicly held corporations LipidLabs turns research into reality.

LipidLabs has the vision, plan, and methodology with the tools and services to ensure that the efforts of federal engineers and scientists are not left on a shelf. LipidLabs develops and tests transfer methods, addresses barriers to the process, helps the marketing process, and provides additional funds for necessary product development. LipidLabs offers capitalization, private funding, and fast track commercialization.

Three distinct R&D Commercialization Segments form the foundation of LipidLabs Technology Transfer Services: 1) Nano-Technology and Applied Materials; 2) Bimolecular Sciences, Medical Health and Wellness; and 3) Manufacturing, Transportation and Storage.

In most cases, LipidLabs will obtain an exclusive license and marketing rights from the university or research facility that will provide for royalty payments to the university from profits generated by that technology. In some cases, LipidLabs actually purchases the patents to products under development.

LipidLabs Growth Strategy is the first strategy to simply increase number and value of technology transfers valuations. Second strategy is to expand customer and university supplier base.

LipidLabs expects to continue to develop new technologies and to leverage on the millions of dollars of research grants that universities spend developing these products.

Yissum And Technology Transfer At The Hebrew University Of Jerusalem

Yissum, the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, aims to promote the transfer of Hebrew University technology for the benefit of society, while maximizing returns to support research, education and scientific excellence.
Founded in 1964, Yissum is one of the first technology transfer companies worldwide – second only to the Weizmann Institute’s Yeda, founded in 1959, and many years senior to most American universities – which began their Technology Transfer Services activities following the Baye-Dole Act of 1980; European universities, which typically began these activities in the 1990′s and Japan, which only began in 1998.
Yissum provides the interface between the university’s researchers and industry, including:
· Licensing out of new technologies
· Creation and support of spin-off companies
· Industry-sponsored academic research
· Scientific services
These years of experience have borne fruit, as Yissum’s revenues place it among the top 15 universities worldwide. Close to $1 billion worth of products based on Hebrew University technology are sold worldwide annually. Yissum’s 2005 revenues were $35 million, of which $23.5 million in royalties Through its efforts in securing industry-sponsored research and other funding, Yissum contributes some 10% of the Hebrew University’s research budget, making the institution a true Technology Transfer University.
Charged with the protection and commercialization of the university’s intellectual property, Yissum has generated over 1,500 patent families over the past 20 years alone, of which 750 are currently active, including 250 which are licensed. In addition, Yissum holds equity in over 50 companies. In 2007, Yissum received 121 disclosures, submitted 91 patent applications and was granted 59 new patents worldwide.
On the commercialization side, over 400 projects were handled in 2007 and 418 agreements were signed, including 33 license and option agreements.
Yissum enjoyed the first Initial Public Offering of one of its companies on the Tel Aviv stock exchange in December 2005 when NasVax Ltd., based on technology from Prof. Chezy Barenholz, was successfully floated. The company now has $10 million in the bank and is in clinical trials with its influenza vaccine. This is not the first commercial success for Prof. Barenholz, who is also the developer of Doxil™, sold by Johnson & Johnson (through its acquisition of Alza) in the United States and Schering Plough (under the trade name Caelyx™) internationally. Doxil™ enjoyed worldwide sales of over $400 million in 2005.
Yissum, through the creation of Atox Bio Inc., was also proud to sponsor the submission to the NIH of a grant application by Prof. Raymond Kaempfer, who successfully received US$ 5.6 million for the biodefence applications of super-antigens. Yissum continues to support AtoxBio as it develops other applications of Prof Kaempfer’s technology.
BioCancell Inc., which was highlighted in last year’s report, successfully raised over US$3 million from private investors and the Hebrew University’s pension fund (as an independent investor), and successfully began clinical trials with its H19-based therapy in patients suffering from bladder cancer.
Following a change of management at the end of 2005, Yissum has announced some organizational changes aimed at providing the university’s researchers with better, more focused service. In addition, Yissum is in the process of simultaneously identifying the university’s Top 30 most commercially-attractive projects, and at the same time raising funds to invest in taking these projects through the proof-of-principle phase in order to achieve significantly higher valuations and much superior terms for commercialization. 2006 promises to be an exciting year for Yissum.
Yissum is the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Over the past 40 years, Yissum has granted more than 400 technology licenses and is responsible for commercializing successful products that generate nearly $1 billion in worldwide sales every year.

7 Technology Transfer Officer Tips For Tough Economic Times

There is no doubt that these are tough economic times. Unemployment is high and credit is tight. Key indicates show that is the worse economy in a generation. Many technology transfer offices have seen potential business partners reduce their innovation portfolios and expenditures. This coupled with a reduction in funding sources, from grants and investors to university sources are blowing the technology transfer research commercialization efforts into the perfect storm.
There are difficulties and challenges, but these times also create opportunities. Here are seven tips to help your technology transfer office succeed in these tough economic times.
1. Maintain a list of problems that are relevant to the research and technologies in the pipeline.
Technology transfer offices typically get involved in research commercialization efforts late in the research and testing process. Get involved earlier in the process and start developing a list of problems of which the research can be applied.
This is really an early brainstorming exercise. Don’t just talk to the researchers. Get business input from those who are not involved with the research or the research teams. Independent ideas can be worth their weight in gold.
2. Develop long-term business relationships.
“Dig the well before you are thirsty.”
-Chinese Proverb
Start developing business relationships with business leaders from a wide range of industries. Do this even before you have any applicable research or solutions for them. These relationships will pay off in two ways.
• You will have a better understanding of the types of challenges that these businesses face.
• When you do have promising research technologies and solutions you already have a relationship with the business or their contacts.
3. Pair researchers with business mentors.
Researchers think like researchers. Business people think like business people. Getting the two to communicate with each other versus talking to each other is a common technology transfer office challenge.
Providing a business mentor to promising research leaders will help alleviate this common problem. This continuous conduit will go a lot further than a long forgotten entrepreneurial seminar.
4. Develop alternative commercialization strategies early.
Good business people know that there is always a chance that their efforts may fail. Technology transfer officers know this too. Unfortunately, many researchers and inventors do not think about this, much less plan for it.
Most inventors think that their invention is world changing and worth millions. They have visions of establishing a company based on their research or technology, selling it for millions, and retiring in the lap of luxury.
The truth of the matter is that nine out of ten spin offs and startups will fail. You, can as the technology transfer officer can improve these odds.
I sit on the advisory board for some start up focused investment funds. One of the strategies that we have developed recently is to go for the big distribution partnering deal with large companies. When that doesn’t work – we find out why and have alternative proposals available.
This alternative could be limited distribution agreements on licensing deals. It really doesn’t matter what the alternative is. What does matter is that you get to stay in the game and get a return on the sunk costs.
5. Reduce risks for all involved.
It wasn’t that long ago that many universities shunned the entire technology transfer process. They wanted their faculty teaching and doing research, not commercializing their intellectual property. My, how times have changed.
Now universities love the revenue that comes from royalties and equity distributions and sales that are associated with intellectual property commercialization. Businesses are always looking for a competitive advantage and right now innovation is the soup de jour, except for one thing …RISK!
In order to get more businesses interested in potential technology look for new ways to reduce their potential risks. Right now cash is king. Instead of negotiating a lower royalty percentage, offer your potential licensor a deferred royalty agreement at a higher percentage. This is the business innovator’s version of “no interest payments for 3 years”.
This approach allows the business to conserve cash today and the university to reap more money in the long run. It’s better than the technology sitting on the shelf waiting to become obsolete.
6. Teach bootstrapping to your startups.
All technology startups need money. That is a known fact. The truth is that many could get by with less money than they think that they need. There in lies the art of bootstrapping. Bootstrapping basically means to start and operate a business without lots of investment funds. It requires the entrepreneur to focus on sales and to hold fixed costs to an absolute minimum.
Bootstrapping requires a unique mindset that few lead researchers turned entrepreneurs can relate to. It takes a special entrepreneur to be able to successfully bootstrap a business.
Help your lead researchers and startup teams. Get some experienced bootstrappers on your advisory and consulting teams and pass the knowledge on to your startups.
7. Partner with other technology transfer offices.
Technology transfer offices provide a valuable service to both the university and their research communities. They play a vital role in the economic development of their respective communities and states. Unlike many organizations involved in the invention commercialization process they do not compete.
Some technology transfer offices such as Stanford and MIT are the envy of their peers, however most technology transfer offices do not reside in a geographic area that harbors entrepreneurship in its DNA.
Partnering with other technology transfer offices offers many unique benefits that cannot be found though other means. It opens up dialogue and support for represented research and technologies to new areas and new commercialization ideas. It develops relationships with other potential business partners and fosters potential research synergies.
Targeted TTO partnerships can lead to specific research pairing with higher degrees of commercialization potential. This focused effort will, in the long run, yield a high degree of return on investment.
These 7 technology transfer officer tips can help you reduce your operating costs and increase your revenue generation success rate. It’s a win for society, the researcher, the business community, the university, and YOU!

Yissum Takes Technology Transfer Services by Storm

Founded in 1964 as a way to encourage the “inventiveness” of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s staff, Yissum Research and Development Company seeks to support and encourage research, development and education in their efforts to turn science into commercial products for society. Yissum is charged with the not insignificant task of protecting HU’s inventions, products and technologies. Serving as the Technology Transfer Services for the university, Yissum focuses on the ongoing assessment, protection and commercial optimization of the university’s intellectual property.
In their 40-plus year history, Yissum has perhaps surpassed expectations, with reported annual revenues in excess of $40 million, mostly from royalties, and properties ranging from long-shelf-life tomatoes to treatments for cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, placing the Hebrew University in the world’s top 15 academic institutions as measured by revenues from intellectual property sales.Protect, Partner, Perform
As the Technology Transfer University for HU, Yissum serves not only to protect the university’s intellectual properties, but also to partner with researchers and worldwide businesses to develop commercial markets, and through licensing, establishing companies, joint ventures and collaborative research, enhance the market value and performance of HU’s discoveries, increasing their availability to a global marketplace.
The arrangement has a track record of success. Hebrew University generates approximately $1 billion in annual sales from products in its IP base and Yissum represents over 250 licensed technologies and 60 spin-off companies. The numbers keep adding up with over 3,000 ongoing research projects, 1,200 researchers, 1,400 registered patents and 5 Nobel laureates, all representing 40% of Israel’s civilian scientific research. The range of intellectual properties includes a diverse mix of industrial and therapeutic areas, including biotechnology, nanotechnology, medical research and technologies, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and nutrition, water and environmental technologies, computer science and software development, homeland security and more.
The seemingly endless supply of promising research projects come from the university’s research base; supported by an annual budget of over $77 million, allowing Yissum to take advantage of Technology Transfer Opportunities by identifying appropriate commercial partners, negotiating license agreements, creating spin-off companies and working closely with local and global commercial partners.
Recent news items focus on the medical arena, with HU’s concept of using cellular technology to send X-rays and other medical diagnostics. The new technology would allow for the use of a smaller, less expensive and easier to use Data Acquisition Device (DAD) at remote patient sites, which would be connected via cell technology with advanced image reconstruction at a central site. The implications are far-reaching and could serve to bring advanced medical technology into areas that otherwise could not afford to have it at their disposal; bringing MRIs, X-Rays and other medical diagnostics into rural and third-world areas.Technologies Supported
Reading through Yissum’s list of products and companies is like reading a Who’s Who directory of the medical and technological worlds. The lists are full of recognized names, successful products and companies that make headlines on a regular basis.
Products from Yissum include Alzheimer and dementia treatment Exelon, dry-eye treatments Cationorm and LO2A (Lacrycon, Dropyal), ovarian cancer treatment Doxil (Caeylx), UV-protection product UV-Pearls-already adopted by major companies for sunscreens and cosmetics, and a variety of other pharmaceutical products. Oh, remember those long-shelf-life tomatoes? That would thanks to BonTom Vegetable Breeding and Research Group, from HU, of course. Another agricultural product from Yissum and Hazera Genetics is the Ram Onion. On the software side, there is Making Better Career Decisions, an interactive, Internet based career-guidance and information system.
Looking over a partial list of companies shows even more diversity, touching on pharmaceuticals, biotech, agriculture and irrigation, water treatment, software development, safety, nanotechnology, and medical technologies, research, development and devices.
Water treatment technologies like En Gibton Ltd and Treatec 21 Industries Ltd; agricultural endeavors Leafsen Irrigation Systems Ltd, Kovax Ltd-vaccines for the aqua culture world, Avian Tech Ltd, and Ravgalai Ltd-detection of antibiotic residues in milk, meat and food products are just the start of the list. Technology and software development come into play with Ex Libris Ltd-high-performance applications for libraries, Mobileeye Vision Technologies Ltd-with automated, on-board driver assist systems and MusicGenome Inc-a system of identifying musical taste based on artificial intelligence.
Perhaps the heaviest area of development is in the medical and pharmaceutical arenas with a long list of companies researching and developing treatments for cancer-including Algen Pharmaceuticals Inc-basically “tricking” cancer cells into “committing suicide.” Other treatment technologies focus on infectious and autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and improving the efficacy of vaccines; even delving into the “nutraceutical” field with carriers for nutraceuticals to be incorporated in food systems and cosmetic formulations.Technology Transfer Services
Yissum serves the Hebrew University, protecting its intellectual properties and moving forward with innovations and technologies into commercial endeavors, ultimately, serving the world community as well as the university through applied chemistry, physics, life science and biotechnologies, water technologies, nanotechnologies, and even veterinary medicine and agricultural technologies. It’s easy to see why Yissum is so highly regarded in the scientific and academic communities and ranks among the top Technology Transfer Services in the world.