The following is a list of the articles that appear in the May 2023 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 17, No. 5, May 2023

• Focus on start-up readiness prior to inking a license agreement and improve chances of success. A common challenge for tech transfer leaders is dealing with faculty start-ups that may have a great idea but not much more. They may lack a solid business plan, have little experience in venture-building, don’t have investor interest, and lack a credible CEO or leadership team. Yet they want to license “their” IP from the university — a move that the TTO suspects will lead nowhere, at least at such an early stage and without considerable development.
• Problematic tax law change could devastate start-ups as groups push for deferral. A recent change to tax law that could have a devastating impact on university start-ups could be deferred if Congress listens to the pleas of TTOs and the research community, but companies should still plan for the impact.
• Priority review vouchers: A potential windfall for TTOs when negotiated into license. More than 15 years ago, Congress created a way to incentivize development of drugs designed to treat neglected diseases that affect mainly developing countries. Those who did so would win a prize: a voucher that could be used to get priority review from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a different drug — for example, one that might have the potential to become a blockbuster.
• Texas State experiments with paying faculty for invention disclosures. What would happen if universities paid their faculty to disclose innovations? Texas State University (TXST) is finding out. Its pay for disclosures program is still in its infancy, but based on early returns it looks like the idea will pay off in spades for the small TTO.
• ASU launches equity crowdfunding pilot as part of start-up funding strategy. For the first time, ownership stakes in Arizona State University (ASU) start-ups will be available to all through equity crowdfunding. Currently, in its pilot phase, ASU’s equity crowdfunding is just one piece of the funding support network for early-stage companies at ASU, but its one that’s touching on many different parts of the pipeline.
• NIH grant funds U New Mexico effort to train other universities in tech transfer. Technology transfer is inherently local. What works for one tech transfer office doesn’t always work for another TTO, and even when it does work, sometimes significant adaptations must be made to fit the commercialization ecosystem at that TTO’s university.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the April 2023 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 17, No. 4, April 2023

• Incentive plans for TTO staff are rare but effective if properly structured. A surprisingly low percentage of tech transfer programs offer financial incentives to their staff, but those who do report that bonuses can have a positive effect on performance, recruiting, retention, and budgeting.
• NSF program looks to boost tech transfer by changing culture and faculty incentives. Imagine 100 more U.S. educational institutions transforming themselves into powerhouses of tech transfer and knowledge transfer in the next decade, on par with MIT, Stanford University, and Georgia Tech. That’s the goal of the National Science Foundation’s new Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program, part of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to accelerate science and technology innovation in every part of the U.S.
• Proactive approaches boost faculty engagement and bring in disclosures. The keys to successful faculty engagement, shared a trio of presenters at the recent AUTM 2023 Annual Meeting, include being proactive and accessible – “meeting them where they are.” The panel offered a range of strategies for building faculty ties, improving outreach, and bringing in more disclosures.
• Guest Commentary: Survey of TTOs offers latest look at data licensing policies. Just over two years ago we wrote on the ongoing mismatch between the burgeoning importance of research data to tech transfer institutions and their formal written IP policies on the data. Here, we update the article with new insights obtained from an informal survey conducted by a working group consisting of TT professionals for approaches on licensing human-related data. Of the various questions we provided for TT professionals in the 2021 article as a framework for data IP policies, many have been answered by actual institutions in the survey results.
• UK Innovate matches staff recognition awards to operating principles. In the current environment of short staffing and competition for staff, as Tech Transfer Central’s recent salary survey showed, three quarters of TTOs offer no salary incentives, and that’s likely an even lower number among state schools. But there are other ways to motivate and retain staff, and the University of Kentucky’s staff awards program is a good example.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the March 2023 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 17, No. 3, March 2023

• Lack of focus on scaling up may limit the long-term success of university-launched ventures. Scaling up is sometimes the forgotten stepchild when it comes to university start-up efforts, yet the scale-up phase is often the most important in terms of long-term success and impact: creating jobs, building revenue, and driving economic growth. Some TTOs have realized that getting a start-up formed is not enough, and that a focused effort on scale-up can greatly increase the odds of long-term success.
• Post I-Corps accelerator idea floated to bring more focus to scaling up. A new idea for start-up acceleration has been proposed that would expand the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, extending support for start-ups to bolster their move past the early stages and into the scale-up phase.
• Heard in the Halls: AUTM 2023. The AUTM annual meeting in Austin was back in full force and then some, two years removed from the COVID-cancelled 2021 date. Those in attendance seemed to relish the return of handshakes and hugs, while standing room only sessions and a lively exhibit hall heralded a return to normalcy. Also in good supply was a sense of optimism and excitement in the wake of CARES Act funding and its underlying recognition of tech transfer’s key role in spawning innovations that provide the raw material for U.S. global competitiveness.
• Guest Commentary: Is My Licensee in Compliance? Tips to Keep Them on Track. University TTOs spend significant time and money negotiating the terms of their license agreement, but what happens once the ink is dry and it’s business as usual? Is anyone checking to ensure compliance with the meticulously negotiated contract?
• Narrowing the gender gap and nailing down the numbers at MUSC. Recent U.S. data show that there are only 13 females for every 87 male patent holders, women comprised fewer than one-third of NIH grantees, and women-founded business receive a meager 3% to 8% of venture capital funding.
• 100% IP ownership option part of WPI’s ‘embrace’ of student start-ups. Student entrepreneurs at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts are presented with a unique option: If they wish, those whose inventions do not involve faculty co-inventors can claim 100% ownership even if they have benefitted significantly from access to WPI labs and other resources.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the February 2023 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 17, No. 2, February 2023

• Tech transfer programs move to flexible staffing strategies to meet new expectations. With tech transfer programs still getting back to some sense of normalcy after the pandemic, some are finding that the old ways of thinking about managing staff don’t hold up as well in the wake of years spent working remotely. Staff members have different expectations after seeing the benefits of working from home, and programs are having to adjust in order to recruit and retain valued employees.
• Improved relations between TTOs, development offices bring benefits for both. Observers agree that alliances between TTOs and university development offices are sometimes uneasy at best — “silo-ism” at its worst, if you will. It appears, especially to some development offices, that they are both after a large slice of the same financial “pie,” making competition more logical than cooperation. And yet, say others, that does not have to be the case.
• Happy anniversary! Tech Launch Arizona ‘projects and reflects’ with video series. To celebrate its 10th anniversary last year, Tech Launch Arizona (TLA) at the University of Arizona in Tucson employed a multi-pronged marketing approach that spotlighted its success, celebrated those who helped along the way, and provided a long-lasting boost to the program’s visibility and brand. The well-honed strategy may be worth studying as a means of marking milestones for your own TTO.
• Weizmann Institute adds new unit to bring research forward prior to TTO involvement.The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world’s leading multidisciplinary research institutions with a long and successful history of technology transfer. But institute leaders there also saw a weak spot in their efforts — a need for more focus on nurturing early research that might have potential applications but is not yet on the TTO’s radar.
• Student-led VCs create additional funding source for university start-ups. They may have chosen two distinctly different paths for raising their initial capital, but student-led venture funds at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Nebraska have much in common — including the creation of financing opportunities for early-stage start-ups and avenues through which student participants gain real-world experience in how VCs operate — and what they need to succeed. At the same time, of course, they help expand university activity in the support of start-ups.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the January 2023 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 17, No. 1, January 2023

• Term sheet template for life science deals aims to reduce bickering and hasten license negotiations. A term sheet template for life science licensing deals developed by a group of prominent university tech transfer programs, venture capital firms, and attorneys could help eliminate much of the haggling over routine issues and establish a baseline of what is typical or most commonly found in license agreements.
• AUTM EDI toolkit suggests de-identification for grants, disclosures, job applicants. It’s common knowledge at this point that women and minority populations are vastly under-represented when it comes to the STEM professions, inventive activity, and even in tech transfer itself. There’s plenty of data to show that these groups participate in tech fields and are included in patents at far lower rates than their relative numbers. THe AUTM EDI toolkit hopes to help change that.
• Hopkins TTO encourages fast fails with “5 Vs” system of tech assessment. You’re driving a van full of your colleagues down the highway and take what you think is the right exit. But soon, your passengers provide feedback that the landscape is all wrong. You’ve made an error and taken a wrong turn. Do you continue down that road or turn back to find the right exit? Of course, you turn back as quickly as possible. A quick U-turn is an example of a “fast fail.”
• Lassonde for Life taps into alumni for entrepreneurial energy. Having one of the top student entrepreneurship programs in the country is a great accomplishment. All too often, however, when the students graduate, the university is no longer a resource for them, and all that entrepreneurial energy dissipates. But what if you could harness entrepreneurial talent and energy and meter it out as needed over the coming decades?
• New start-up support organizations focus efforts on STEM-related fields. Technology commercialization already is a major focus at both the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Harvard University. Yet, in recent months, these institutions announced new commercialization initiatives focused on STEM areas that will operate separate from existing TTOs.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the December 2022 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 16, No. 12, December 2022

• As litigation funding gains acceptance, universities may seek more infringement cases. More universities are taking advantage of litigation funding for patent infringement cases, even as there are growing questions about how unfavorably courts and others might view this strategy.
• Vanderbilt’s ‘peer-to-peer’ Innovation Ambassadors puts faculty on TTO team. Vanderbilt University has launched what it calls the Innovation Ambassadors program — a volunteer initiative in which each department has a faculty member who serves as a liaison between researchers and innovation programs across campus. At the heart of the program is “peer to peer counseling and advising,” says Alan Bentley, assistant vice chancellor, who heads up the Center for Technology Transfer & Commercialization.
• At the big football game, BYU and Notre Dame start-ups score with investors. The University of Notre Dame football team headed to Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium this past October for its 2022 Shamrock Series game against BYU. Since 2009, this beloved series has brought the home football game experience to a neutral location and acts as a bowl game of sorts for players and fans. This year’s game had a little twist: it also served as a venue for giving start-ups from the two schools some great exposure.
• FTO analysis: A prudent step to mitigate patent infringement liability. For many TTOs, conducting a freedom-to-operate analysis to ensure a clear path to commercialization is an expensive proposition that is not a regular part of their IP-related due diligence. But in many cases it should be, and neglecting an FTO analysis can cost you in the long run. In a classic “penny wise, pound foolish” calculation, TTOs that overlook this fundamental safeguard could find themselves doing damage control.
• Milestone-driven funding for early technologies gets a DEI twist at Mount Sinai. When it comes to encouraging diversity in tech transfer activity, sometimes it seems like there’s more talk than action – but not for Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP), which is putting its money where its mouth is.
• CROs gaining bigger role in TTOs’ life science commercialization plans. In life sciences commercialization, tech transfer offices have become much more willing to bring drug candidates further forward to de-risk the IP for potential licensees, while drug-focused university start-ups also face hurdles in the development process that can make or break their futures. For both those reasons, contract research organizations (CROs) are becoming a bigger, and often critical, TTO partner.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the November 2022 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 16, No. 11, November 2022

• CU Boulder paves the way for start-ups using ‘Licensing with EASE®’ model. Since launching its Licensing with EASE® express agreement for start-up entrepreneurs in 2018, CU Boulder has seen its number of startups “increase dramatically,” according to Brynmor Rees, associate vice chancellor for research & innovation and managing director of Venture Partners.
• Tech transfer veterans apply their lessons learned to build Baptist Health Innovations. Baptist Health South Florida is waist-deep in the process of transforming from its roots as a community hospital to an academic medical center with the addition of translational research and innovation functions, and one the organization’s first moves to ramp up its commercialization activity was bringing on board two seasoned technology transfer professionals:.
• To boost tech transfer, Yale ups royalty shares for faculty, labs, departments. Yale University is changing its patent royalty sharing practices to more generously distribute net income generated from new technologies to the originating researchers, as well as their academic units and schools.
• U Arkansas commercialization retreat promotes networking as part of faculty outreach. Faculty outreach and engagement remain top of mind for most TTOs, so when new ways of doing things appear in this arena, it’s definitely a sharing moment. The University of Arkansas Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, in collaboration with the Office of Technology Ventures, has organized and hosted three-day retreats focused on research commercialization for more than 10 years, and tech transfer leaders there say it’s a great way to connect people from all over the state.
• TTO marketing tactics: What works, what doesn’t. Technology Transfer Tactics conducted a mini-survey of marketers and leaders in technology transfer offices, looking for their best advice on the tactics that worked exceptionally well for them, along with tactics to avoid spending their limit time and marketing bandwidth on.
• Auburn U’s new TTO brand depicts corporate image over academic. It’s always interesting when a TTO or otherwise titled commercialization office does a re-branding that involves more than just changing a sign on the door. In the case of Auburn University’s technology transfer unit, the Office of Innovation Advancement and Commercialization (IAC) now touts a new moniker with a very commercial rather than academic feel — the Intellectual Property Exchange (aka the IP Exchange or IPX).

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the October 2022 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 16, No. 10, October 2022

Special bonus: Study on resource allocation in TTOs

A Preliminary Study of the Impact of Resource Allocation on Licensing Outcomes of Academic Institutions in the United States, contributed by tech transfer veteran Arundeep Pradhan and co-authors from his consulting firm Apio Innovation Transfer as well as Portland State University, offers fascinating insights and data on a range of resource allocation issues, particularly staffing and legal expense, and their correlation to licensing activity.

The study offers a useful look at how allocation of staff and budget dollars may affect the results of your licensing efforts, and provides some unique data points to consider and compare to your own office. We hope you benefit from this “extra” from Technology Transfer Tactics and Apio. 

• Avoid information silos to lessen the pain of TTO staff turnover. Staff turnover in a tech transfer program can create cascading problems that reach far beyond the immediate lack of talent when it involves employees who are managing active files, pursuing licensees, working with companies, and helping researchers move their inventions toward commercialization.
• Navigating the IP trail when a faculty member leaves. While universities might want to keep their best researchers forever, it’s a fact of life for TTOs that inventors often leave for greener pastures.
• USF’s online portal eases disclosures, aids transparency, and provides marketing boost. A new online licensing portal just introduced by the TTO at the University of South Florida has been welcomed by faculty, as it enhances the efficiency of the disclosure process and also offers them real-time updates on the status of their inventions. “The feedback so far is that faculty really like it,” says Michele Tyrpak, JD, USF’s director of technology engagement and commercialization.
• NCATS breaks the mold: Case studies of unique technology transfer mechanisms. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a unique biomedical institution that is both a granting institution administered by our extramural program and a research enterprise fueled by our Division of Pre-Clinical Innovation (DPI). Very few institutions have both the funding to accomplish health initiatives through grants and contracts, as well as the internal scientific expertise to conduct original research themselves.
• TTO uses targeted webinars to educate faculty innovators. Although no one would argue that the world is a better place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been a few unexpected positives, particularly in new ways of communicating necessitated by lack of in-person meetings. In many cases these changes, implemented out of necessity, have been adopted into regular practice even as the world has veered back toward normalcy. The University of Kentucky (UK) Office of Technology Commercialization’s (OTC) continuation of an educational outreach program they started when they were unable to hold in-person learning opportunities for their faculty is a perfect case in point.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the September 2022 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 16, No. 9, September 2022

• Strategies for managing underperforming licensees: Enforcer, counselor, or both? It happens to every TTO once in a while. You licensed patented technology to a company that just isn’t making enough progress, so your original expectations for licensing revenue, attainment of milestones, and associated fees aren’t met.
• Founders Pledge programs: An overlooked opportunity for TTO-directed giving? Founders Pledge programs, through which start-up founders sign commitments to “give back” to their alma maters following some future exit or other financial windfall, have been around for more than 20 years but appear to have experienced a “growth spurt” among U.S. universities since 2013, when UC Berkeley launched a program that has been modeled by many other institutions. In fact, Imperial College London just initiated a program it claims to be the first in the U.K., and universities in Australia and Canada have also joined the bandwagon.
• Venture studio model gaining traction as nurturer of university start-ups. Universities have become rather prolific start-up factories, but too few of these new ventures end up scaling into thriving businesses. In a 2020 paper written by Brigham Young University professors and published in Nature Biotechnology, 40% of the most recently formed university-licensed start-ups from the Top 50 patent producing universities never grew or added jobs, yet remained “active” for long periods of time.
• John Hopkins Inventor’s Guide — a best practice roadmap to resources for faculty. Most TTOs have online access to information or a written summary to help their inventors navigate the ins and outs of how to go about getting an invention commercialized, but John Hopkins University has really knocked it out of the park with their comprehensive “Inventor’s Guide.” And it’s not just a valuable educational resource, it’s also a way to increase the number of faculty working with the TTO to ultimately get more inventions commercialized and start-ups formed.
• Matchmaking Program looks to boost start-up activity and economic development. When the Wichita Entrepreneurship Coalition (ICT-EC) was awarded a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration for its “Build to Scale” venture program, there were a few entities that benefited – including the Office of Tech Transfer and Commercialization at Wichita State University (WSU).

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the August 2022 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 16, No. 8, August 2022

• TTO satisfaction surveys can bring critical improvements in faculty service. Two tech transfer programs surveying the faculty they interact with to assess customer satisfaction and obtain valuable feedback are both reporting good results in gathering information that has helped them improve their operations, though they use very different survey instruments and approaches.
• U-M Startup Pipeline report helps raise early-stage investment capital. In an effort to reach investors in a more targeted way, the University of Michigan’s Innovation Partnerships Ventures team has created the U-M Startup Pipeline, a quarterly report that is shared with nearly 800 investors (some international), including strategic corporations. The team has worked with Wellspring Sophia to curate the start-ups.
• Study points to technology maturity level as key to successful licensing. A minimum technology maturity level may be necessary for successful commercialization in some situations, according to research that could influence how tech transfer programs prioritize and de-risk their IP.
• Guest Commentary: Seven steps to increase patent inventorship equity. It’s no secret that women are underrepresented as patent inventors in the United States. Institutional structures and biases, including patent education gaps, status hierarchy, and monetary incentives, contribute to the gender patent gap. Unfair inventorship attribution decisions create cumulative disadvantages in employment, tenure, and status. TTOs can help do something about it.
• Stanford’s retreats help TTO staff identify and address issues, each other. Many corporations regularly hold department and unit retreats for any number of reasons — from helping the members of the staff improve their communications and ability to work together, to addressing key issues of the day. So, if major companies find them valuable, why not university TTOs?
• “Work from Purdue” program helps build start-up ecosystem. For universities launching start-ups in “flyover country,” without an ecosystem to support those new ventures, keeping the new companies in the area can be a tough proposition.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the July 2022 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 16, No. 7, July 2022

• TTOs face “impossible” challenge in making accurate financial projections. Okay, so you signed “X” number of licenses last year for a total of “X” dollars. How many will you sign this year, or next, and how much revenue with they produce? What about your start-ups? How many will be formed this year? How many will exit in, say, five years? What about upfront fees? Patent reimbursements?
• Drive a collaborative culture with non-monetary TTO metrics. While metrics enable technology transfer offices to define and track progress toward performance goals, many of those metrics are very rigid, says Michael Dixon, PhD, president and CEO of UNeMed, the tech transfer and commercialization office for the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. “It’s worth taking a step back and looking at the softer metrics that help us measure and then develop our collaborative culture.”
• Drive for innovation education expected to boost tech transfer at Mass General Brigham. In most TTOs, commercialization training is typically offered only to those researchers, faculty, or clinicians who express an interest and have an idea for creating a product or company. While that’s fine, what if you could provide that same training to essentially the entire organization so everyone – particularly potential inventors and innovators – had a baseline knowledge of what it takes to bring an idea to the marketplace? At Mass General Brigham (MGB) Hospital, that’s exactly what is now happening, and leaders there hope it pays off in a significant boost to commercialization activity.
• Avoiding pitfalls from ‘prophetic’ language in marketing summaries. Nearly everyone who’s seen or heard financial advertising is familiar with the phrase: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” Or in the stock market, it might be “read the prospectus before you invest.” In fact, these common cautions have become almost clichéd.
• Pitch Prep helps Northwestern student start-up competition increase its value. While there’s nothing new about student start-up competitions, Northwestern University has figured out how to add a unique twist to theirs by offering semifinalists “Pitch Prep,” an intensive program designed to hone pitching skills and prepare student entrepreneurs for the rough and tumble world of start-up venture funding.

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the June 2022 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter.

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Technology Transfer Tactics
Vol. 16, No. 6, June 2022

• Rogue EIRs and mentors can bring trouble, need limits and guardrails. Entrepreneurs-in-residence and mentors play important roles in guiding university start-ups, but the same independent streak responsible for their success can sometimes lead them to do things that are contrary to the university’s policies or expectations. Experts say tech transfer programs need to establish guidelines and guardrails to keep EIRs in their lane.
• Don’t let “dead equity” complicate a cap table and stymie start-up growth. “Dead equity” can be a major red flag when potential investors look at a university start-up’s cap table, prompting concerns about whether founders are still contributing to the company or just along for the ride.
• $3 million infusion for gap funding promises a surge in Cornell’s innovation pipeline. Ignite, Cornell University’s gap funding series, will expand its innovation pipeline in the coming years using a $3 million annual infusion of funding from the provost’s office and a handsome donation from alum Peggy J. Koenig, chair of the private equity firm Abry Partners.
• Emory TTO’s innovation awards: A centerpiece of campus culture-building. Earlier this spring, staffers at Emory University’s Office of Technology Transfer in Atlanta, GA, breathed a sigh of relief as they held the Annual Celebration of Technology and Innovation at the Emory Conference Center.
• Harvard and VC partner on internships focused on underrepresented. Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development is going beyond its typical responsibilities to help boost diversity in innovation with a targeted internship program in partnership with a local VC.