May 26, 2005
New TechTransfer program helps ‘launch’ from inspiration to implementation
UW TechTransfer Digital Ventures has developed a program to ease the transition of projects from the laboratory to self-sustaining entities.
“It takes a combination of commercial savvy and a close working relationship among all elements of a project to move beyond the development stage and to become a self-sustaining operation,” says Gail Dykstra, software technology manager. TechTransfer will provide a physical space where project members can work together, as well as the necessary infrastructure for dealing with day-to-day issues of customer service and record keeping.
The idea of this program, which TechTransfer has dubbed Launch Pad™, is to build research enterprises inside the UW by providing research projects with a chance to perfect their business model, providing low-cost office space and easy access to licensing staff.
LaunchPad™ was piloted with the UW Department of Pharmaceutics’ Drug Interaction Database, a Web-based search tool that allows complex queries of medical and pharmacology literature. The database contains information about drug interactions and is becoming an important tool for researchers in pharmaceutics, the academic community, regulatory agencies, and the private sector.
Rene Levy, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutics, wanted to bring the database beyond the laboratory and make it more broadly available. TechTransfer offered the project a space in which the project participants could regularly interact with one another and also acquire the necessary administrative support and intellectual property management, such as: setting up subscription records for clients who wanted copies of the database, developing and negotiating licensing agreements, and managing detailed records of customer support.
“Most scientific researchers have neither the time nor the specific skills necessary to manage the development of a project in this way,” Dykstra says. “UW TechTransfer was able to provide the administrative framework for the commercialization of a product that potentially is of great value to a broader community. The past two years have shown that this approach can succeed. The Drug Interaction Database has gained $600,000 in revenue as a commercial product in this last year.
“As faculty members,” Levy says, “we are familiar with the process of sharing knowledge through publications but we are usually ignorant of the steps involved in making this resource available to our colleagues in the private sector.” Levy says the developers of the database are now looking at new markets for the product, new commercial relationships and new distributors and partners who will help to develop the next generation of information tools.
“Now that DIDB has established key relationships with numerous pharmaceutical and biotech companies and has a stable revenue base to work from, it is poised to partner with a distributor or informatics company to expand its impact on the drug discovery and clinical markets,” says Chuck Williams, director of UW TechTransfer Digital Ventures.
UW TechTransfer believes that there are potentially a number of projects around campus that could benefit from Launch Pad™ — projects that do not yet have the revenue to support themselves but need a transition phase between a laboratory idea and a self-sustaining commercial venture.
“Launch Pad™ builds research enterprises inside the UW by providing research projects with a chance to perfect their business model, establish a revenue base of licenses, create solid customer relationships and explore partnering opportunities — all with hands-on support,” Williams says.
