Tag Archives: Technology Transfer

New data about academic technology transfer to startups

Leave a reply

Nathan Benaich is very unhappy with technology transfer in the UK and he is probably right to be. For many years I had noticed that British academic institutions often took more than a 25% ownership in a startup in exchange for a license of intellectual property, whereas the standard figure in the USA and continental Europe is more in the 5-10% range. He had published a very interesting article in May 2021, Rewriting the European spinout playbook where he was complaining about a lack of transparency and very frustrating processes.

He is now working on a new set of data provided by founders that he makes freely available on spinout.fyi. He is asking for help and any interested founder should provide a little if she can. I downloaded his data and provide here my own analysis although Nathan has his own here. You should read it. Here is a first set of tables:

If you do not like tables and even if you do, here are more figures:

And because I had done a similar research some years ago, posted here as How much Equity Universities take in Start-ups from IP Licensing?, I did the exercise of combining his and my data. This is a set of 190+ companies! You will see the equity ownership per domain and per region.

So what are the lessons? The UK is a clear outlier, but what is more striking is the volatility in the numbers. And why is that? Some professional claim each startup is different. I disagree. Strongly! The lack of transparency in the policies is the reason of the volatility. Founders seldom know how they will be treated. This is why I was so happy with EPFL publishing its policy. See my recent post Technology Transfer according to EPFL and Rules for Startups.

I really hope that Nathan Benaich’s effort will help in bringing a much needed transparency in these numbers!

Technology Transfer according to EPFL and Rules for Startups

Leave a reply

Technology transfer has best practices but it is not so easy to read about them. The Technology Transfer Office (TTO) at Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (EPFL) had the great idea to publish how it manages the specific situation of startup creation. In March 2022, it published its New Guidelines for start-ups at EPFL. It is a very interesting document and I advise people curious about the topic to read it. “I wish I had it when I launched my start-up!” claims one of the EPFL entrepreneur. At the same time, the head of EPFL’S TTO was interviewed by Nature Communication and the document is worth reading too. Here is the link : A conversation on technology transfer. I will quote it at the end of the post.

Here are some data:

– For exclusive licenses, EPFL obtains either a number of shares equivalent to 10% of the start-up capital stock at incorporation, or a lower share of the capital stock that is undiluted until the start-up has received a certain amount of equity investment, e.g. 5% of capital share undiluted until the total accumulated investment reaches the amount of 5 MCHF, regardless of the value of the company.

– Royalties are applicable on sales and depend on the industry
Pharma 2–5%
Medtech 2–4%
Sensors, optics and robotics 1.5–3%
Environmental sciences & energy 1–3%
Computer and communication 1.5–3%
Semiconductors 1–3%
Software 1-25%
(this last % may be surprising and I assume it applies to licenses of fully usable software as a product)

– Exit : At the time of exit, EPFL will diligently consider any request of a start-up to transfer the licensed patents to an acquiring company that is committed and that has the capacity to further develop and commercialize the technology. The companies shall furnish the necessary business information to allow EPFL to understand the needs of such a transfer, and in the case of a royalty buyout to make a valuation of the licensed patents in terms of potential sales.

As promised some interesting elements from the interview. The words in bold are my choice.

“Contrary to what might be expected, the main factor is not necessarily the idea or technology itself, but people’s involvement. The actual and future commitment of the individuals involved in the commercialization of the technology is paramount, both on the academic and industrial sides. The commercialization of technologies is a long journey, from development, through de-risking, including prototyping and preliminary clinical validations, market analysis and industrialization, to the first sale. As no technology will find the path to commercialization by itself, long-term commitment is key.”

“Entrepreneurship is an effective way to increase the odds, by having a single actor transitioning and playing both roles. While this strategy requires a double commitment in terms of time and risk taking, it may lead to a higher potential reward for the researcher.”

“It’s certainly a positive development that PhD students and postdocs now have a third option to consider besides staying in academia or taking a job in industry — that of becoming an entrepreneur — and an increasing number of great examples of entrepreneurs and start-up role models exist.”

“If personal motivation and commitment to entrepreneurship are present, the start-up route is the way to go. It’s important to understand that many TTOs do not create start-ups. Researchers, as “founders”, do it.”

A big thank you to my dear former colleagues in Switzerland for mentioning this very much needed information.

Exclusive license vs. ownership of Intellectual Property

Leave a reply

Intellectual Property (IP) is a sensitive and often cleaving topic. I have already addressed the topic here, check the hashstag #intellectual-preperty (or also #licensing). But even once the general value of IP is addressed, there are tons of secondary issues.

One is the specific question of how ownership of IP by a startup vs. an exclusive license granted by an academic institution is considered, in particular by investors. On January 27, 2022, I send an short email to 300+ investors and I got about a 10% response rate. In parallel, I mentioned the topic on my LinkedIn account and I got additional comments. Although, there is a rich argumentation about pros and cons of both situations, so that the reader may want to have a careful look at the full answers, here is my synthetic understanding:

There is no fundamental difference between license and transfer from the point of view of the startup’s strategy, except what happens in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation. The license is not an asset and therefore the intellectual property is no longer usable. With this nuance, admittedly significant, there are two additional points:
– Some investors think that the owner pays for the maintenance of the IP and suits the possible “infringers” to defend this property. I don’t think that’s the case because in my experience it’s the licensee who does that.
– In case of a trade sale, it is important that the license can be transmitted and this is a major item, that is to be guaranteed. There maybe political or strategic issues though.
Finally, a price for the transfer may be added when or if possible.
There is no doubt that the reputation of the institution and the stability of these acts are essential. (There would be more to add like equity vs. (capped or not) royalties in the license terms, milestones and many details… I tried to be as short as possible).

You can download here pdf file Survey on license vs ownership of IP.

Survey on license vs ownership of IP – Lebret – 1Feb2022

A MIT entrepreneurial history – Part 2 : Ecosystems & Culture

Leave a reply

I continued reading the excellent From the Basement to the Dome by Jean-Jacques Degroof and found more inspiring elements about ecosystems, culture and also technology transfer from academic institutions after my first post. Here they are:

6 ingredients of the MIT ecosystem

Degroof gives us the cultural elements of the ecosystem: But what is it about this culture that has been supportive of entrepreneurship? The argument of this book is that entrepreneurship is particularly congruent with at least six elements of MIT’s culture: a well-ingrained, bottom-up organizational dynamic; excellence in all things that one studies or attempts to do, as well as a belief in hard work and fortitude; an interest in problem-solving and having a positive impact on the world; a belief in experimenting and a tolerance of failure; the pride of being viewed as rebels, sometimes eccentric and even a bit geeky, pursuing unconventional solutions; and the tradition of a multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving. [Page 90]

Why startups?

Here is an interesting comment about academic technology transfer: “Established firms are seldom interested in licensing emerging technologies from academia for several reasons. They don’t understand the potential of the technology; the time frame to develop the tech into a viable product exceeds the time horizon that most firms are comfortable with, or else they fear that they could cannibalize their existing business. As a result, in 1987, the TLO’s new director, John Preston, took the initiative to license technology to new ventures in exchange for equity, first as an experiment because there was a great concern at MIT about potential conflicts of interest. During the first year of this policy, six companies were formed based on such licenses, including ImmuLogic and American Superconductor. Sixteen more companies were formed during the second year. [Page 34]

Degroof then describes the multitude of ecosystem tools, all in a bottom-up logic, with serendipity (chapter 6) as a fairly common mechanism. The beginning of chapter 8 on technology transfer with the example of Amberwave is another must-read:

Often the initial performance of the new technology is either lower than that of existing solutions or not high enough to justify the switching cost for potential clients. As a result, established companies often don’t see the potential of new academic technologies. Moreover, in the few cases when the technology’s advantage is obvious or clearly promising, established companies are often concerned lest they cannibalize market share from their existing technology—a technology in which they have invested time and money, and around which they have built whole supply chains and other infrastructure.
It is estimated that an investment equal to 10 to 100 times the cost of the academic research is needed to bring an academic technology to market. This process also requires patience and perseverance. It can take at least two to three years for a patent to get issued once it is filed. When a company finally licenses a technology, it might take an additional five to ten years before it generates revenue. All in all, the uncertain performance of developing academic inventions, the associated costs, and the time lag between invention and revenue generation make investing in embryonic academic inventions extremely unattractive.
This does not mean that large firms never license patents from universities, but more often, inventors are the only ones to understand and to believe in the commercial potential of their technology. They are, therefore, frequently the only candidates interested in founding (and sometimes funding) a company to commercialize their technology. This process involves obtaining a license for the patent or patents based on their invention from their university, since, following the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the university owns the intellectual property of government-funded research. The edge that inventors have is the extensive and unique knowledge that they have accumulated through their research efforts and exposure to industry over the years. [Page 156]

Managing technology transfer

And more interesting information here about avoiding conflicts of interests at MIT: Policies do not allow faculty members to use students for research and development (R&D) related to a start-up in which that professor has equity, nor may students be employed by such a start-up. A start-up in which a professor has an interest is not allowed to fund research in that professor’s lab. Similarly, a professor is not allowed to conduct federally funded research in collaboration with such a start-up, with the exception of SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding. A start-up venture may not be located in a lab. Employees of a professor’s start-up may not be involved in the research activities of the professor’s lab. Research in the lab may not be influenced by a professor’s other professional activities. A faculty member’s full-time employment at MIT prohibits significant managerial responsibilities in a start-up. [Pages 161-62]

Or about making money with Technology Transfer: Many universities expect their technology transfer activities to be profitable and bring in revenue. Although MIT is one of the most successful and experienced universities in terms of technology transfer, its experience shows that this kind of financial gain is a misleading expectation. “Any university that counts on its tech transfer to make a significant change in its finances is statistically going to be in trouble,” said Nelsen. To that end, her motto during her tenure as head of the TLO was, “Impact, not income.” [Page 162]

Many startup stories

Degroof adds anecdotic descriptions of individual companies, rich with lessons: these are BBN (1948), Teradyne (1960), Analog Devices (1965), Prime Computer (1972), Apollo Computer (1980), Thinking Machines (1983), Harmonix Music Systems (1995), Amberwave (1998) ThingMagic (2000), Momenta Pharmaceuticals (2001), SmartCells (2003), Ambri (2010), Firefly Bioworks (2010), Sanergy (2011), Wecyclers (2012), Nima Sensor (2013), Bounce Imaging (2013), ReviveMed (2016), Biobot Analytics (2017), not forgetting Robert Langer’s 40+ spinoffs from 1987 to today!

Internal venture capital – The Engine

My experience with academic venture capital funds is mitigated to say the least. So this is an interesting experiment: Faced with this perceived market failure, MIT’s leadership pointed to the need for patient capital to bring ventures that are trying to commercialize tough science and need more time than do digital businesses to reach a stage where they are ready for venture capital. […] In October 2016, President Reif announced the creation of The Engine, https://www.engine.xyz , a for-profit but public benefit corporation, separate from MIT, that would act as an accelerator for start-ups trying to commercialize “tough techs” by providing advice and physical facilities, as well as an investment fund of patient capital. […] In addition to going against MIT’s policy of not funding entrepreneurial projects, The Engine also broke with Institute tradition by incubating the entrepreneurial projects of its members, which certainly raised substantial objections within the MIT community. [Page 64]

The Engine has a double bottom line: it seeks financial returns and it seeks impact. The Engine raised $200 million for its first fund, with MIT contributing $25 million. […] The fund invests from $250,000 to $2 million per venture, and its investments are not exclusive to MIT-related firms. The investment is made with a time horizon of eighteen years, rather than the typical five to eight years given in the case of venture capital funds. […] Second, The Engine gives start-ups access to infrastructure, such as expensive, specialized equipment, including some from MIT, that otherwise might represent a barrier to entry to firm foundations. The Engine’s facility was initially located in 26,000 square feet of space in Cambridge, with the ambition of expanding to 200,000 square feet through a network of offices, labs, and prototyping and makerspaces a few blocks from Kendall Square. […] Third, the new initiative comes with a network of professionals and mentors in the so-called hard-tech space. [Page 173]

In 2020, The Engine raised a second $250M with $35M from MIT and Harvard University joined as a new LP. Is this different than VC? Will it succeed? Time will tell…

Google is not Stanford largest license revenue anymore

Leave a reply

Until early this morning, I thought that the Google license (i.e. the rights Stanford University had granted the startup on the PageRank patent) was the largest generator of licensing revenue for the Californian university. I was wrong! If you read the annual reports of OTL, its Office of Technology Licensing, for example the pdf of the 2016 Annual Report, you may notice that the largest royalty revenue generator had another source: intellectual property/patents about functional monoclonal antibodies. Here are what these reports say of the largest amount of revenue in a given year from a single invention:
2016: $64M
2015: $62.77M
2014: $60.53M
2013: $55M
2012: $51M
2011: $44M
2010: $45M
2009: $38M
2008: $37M
2007: $33.5M
2006: $29M
These numbers give a total of $363M and another book mentions $125M cumulatively before 2006. But a more recent powerpoint document shows that the total cumulative revenue is … $613M!!

As a side note, in 2005, the Google patent gave proceeds of $336M following the company IPO. The 2004 and 2003 reports do not say the amount of the largest source of income whereas in 2002, it was “an unexpected $5.8M in one-time royalties” and in 2001, “for the first time in over 20 years, a physical science invention – an optical fiber amplifier – generated the most income”.

As Lita Nelsen from MIT said (see my previous post), “Even nationwide, you can show that tech transfer is, at best, a lottery if you want to make an ability to influence [a university’s financial position]. The primary winners—not 100 percent of them, but damn close—are single pharmaceuticals. Because if a pharmaceutical hits the market, it’s going to be in the multi-billon dollar [range]. The equity is seldom worth a lot, unless of course you can follow up with preferred investments. But that’s not what we’re in the business of doing. Any university that counts on its tech transfer to make a significant change in its finances is statistically going to be in trouble.” Google was a big exception with the equity proceeeds whereas the patent around monoclonal antibodies or the Cohen Boyer patent are about pharma. Have a look at the next figure from the same powerpoint document.

Interestingly enough I am reading a very interesting book (more when I am finished) which describes the early days of Silicon Valley and in particular the creation of the office of Technology Licensing by Niels Rimers.

In Troublemakers, author Leslie Berlin extensively describes the Cohen Boyer patent. In note 32 (page 450), she describes the terms of the Cohen-Boyer license. You can also find them in Lessons from the Commercialization of the Cohen-Boyer Patents: The Stanford University Licensing Program.

73 companies has signed for the initial $10k upfront payment, but “ten companies alone provided 77% (US$197 million) of the total licensing income” and 3 (Amgen, Genentech and Lily) provided close to 50% of the total. All this is well-known but I thought it would be interesting to blog about it today.

MIT’s Lita Nelsen Perspective on Academic Technology Transfer

Leave a reply

I just read an excellent interview of Lita Nelsen who has recently retired as head of MIT’s Technology Licensing Office. You should read the full Exit Interview: Lita Nelsen on MIT Tech Transfer, Startups & Culture. I was used to say that MIT was more conservative than Stanford just like the Boston Area has been known to be more conservtaive than California, but things change. So let me just mention a few extracts.


Lita Nelsen (Formerly head of MIT Technology Licensing Office)

About patents:

Patents are needed because the whole idea is if you’re going to get somebody to invest a lot of time and a lot of money, if you succeed you don’t want the other guy, the bigger guy, saying, “Well, thank you very much. Now that you’ve shown the way, get out of the way.” We are primarily using patents as an incentive for investment.

About universities having an investment fund:

[The Technology Licensing Office helps] start about 25 or 30 companies a year. God knows how many [other companies started on campus] go out the back door. No one fund could put that amount of sweat equity into all of them. Now imagine we have MIT’s fund, and I invest in company A, but don’t have the resources to do B, or maybe not C. Then I go with C to [an outside venture capital firm] and say, “How would you like my leftovers?” There’s a negative selection bias there for what we don’t invest in. So, better to let a level playing field for anybody who wants to play.

But one thing any institution doing it has to decide is, are we primarily in it for return on investment? Or are we primarily in it for getting companies started that wouldn’t otherwise get started? You usually get a mixed message if you ask people which it is. And as everybody knows, when you get mixed missions, things get very hard to manage.

About equity in licensing:

How much equity does the Technology Licensing Office usually take when it spins out a company? Usually in the lower single digits, maybe a little higher if you have a software spinout. And it’s common shares.

If it’s research-intensive stuff—biotech, things that take multiple rounds of funding—[our stake] usually gets demoted down to [tiny] portions. You make a little money; you don’t make a lot. Except in cases when the Wall Street bubble is totally irrational. Even nationwide, you can show that tech transfer is, at best, a lottery if you want to make an ability to influence [a university’s financial position]. The primary winners—not 100 percent of them, but damn close—are single pharmaceuticals. Because if a pharmaceutical hits the market, it’s going to be in the multi-billon dollar [range]. The equity is seldom worth a lot, unless of course you can follow up with preferred investments. But that’s not what we’re in the business of doing. Any university that counts on its tech transfer to make a significant change in its finances is statistically going to be in trouble.

About accelerators:

“Does MIT have an incubator?” And my classic answer has been, “Yes, it’s called the city of Cambridge.”

The problem with accelerators is the definition has become as broad and varied as incubators, which range from science parks to little projects within universities, so you don’t know what the word means until you dig in. But some of them are putting money into product development. Some of them are venture funds expecting ROI. Some of them are [funded] through donations, as we did with Deshpande and Harvard did with their accelerator.
It’s going to be interesting to look at the mechanisms that people are trying. Because the problem is there: How do we get from the stage of which the university has done its research and maybe even gotten on the cover of Science magazine, to where somebody is going to invest in that ripening process before it actually turns into true product development, short-term product development? How do you get from the petri dish to full-scale clinical trials? You’ve got to get pretty far along before pharma’s going to do that for you. So people are looking both within universities and outside of universities as to how you fill the gap.

About teaching entrepreneurship:

now MIT, with its emphasis on innovation, is investing officially in training students in innovation and entrepreneurship, along with, not separate from, their intense technical educations. It’s not “you go and learn how to be an entrepreneur,” it’s you learn biology or chemistry or electrical engineering or computer science, but you also learn how entrepreneurship and innovation and moving technology out into the marketplace works—rather than having to learn that after you graduate.

Research Exploitation according to Jacques Lewiner

Leave a reply

The excellent Paris Innovation Review (formerly known as the ParisTech review) just published an interview of Jacques Lewiner (for the ones not knowing him, you may want to have a look at Jacques Lewiner about Innovation. This new article is entitled Research exploitation: catching up at a quick pace!

It begins with:“Academic research is not only a driver of scientific progress. It is a means to change the world. Many discoveries, including in areas related to basic research, can lead to new processes, products or services.”

Lewiner then explains the complexity of a successful exploitation and biases related to it. “The first [bias] is that, when we think about exploitation, we stick to patents. […] But sticking to patents means ignoring the essential, i.e. the entrepreneurial aspect of exploitation. […] Hence the importance of the entrepreneurial aspect: encouraging researchers to found startups and develop by themselves the economic potential of their discovery. The second bias comes [with …] a strong reluctance to admit that a researcher can make money, or even a fortune. […] A researcher’s brain is government property!”

Then Lewiner adresses the topic of licensing – More about it in How much Equity Universities take in Start-ups from IP Licensing? So here is what he says: “Nothing prevents the institution from taking shares in the company. 5% of shares, for example, is a reasonable figure, close to what most dynamic ecosystems offer. […] Holding golden shares would be equally counterproductive. […] In short, we need a whole new culture of investment.”

Lewiner indeed insists on an adequate culture: “Speed is a real challenge and on this sense, a well-equipped institution with some experience and good contacts […] can offer a real added value. Role models can also play an incentive role for researchers. […] All these ingredients of the “startup culture” require transmission.”

In the end, I only disagree with his final comment: “I dream of the day when French doctoral students will answer to the question of what they will do after their thesis with the same mindset as their counterparts in Stanford or Harvard: ‘I’m still trying to figure out in which of my thesis supervisor’s startups I want to work with.’ ” I think Lewiner is wrong. Ideally, they should do their own start-ups, just like they do at Stanford…

PS: thanks a lot to the colleague who mentioned this interview to me 🙂

Two Challenges of Technology Transfer – Part 2, Get to Know Your TTO.

Leave a reply

My second post about Technology Transfer (following the one about National Systems) is about the micro-economics of the activity. This is motivated by the very good Keys to the kingdom – subtitled What you need to know about your technology transfer office.

Before summarizing its content, let me remind you about the posts which already cover the topic so you will agree it’s not a new topic for me and I consider it as important:
– University licensing to start-ups in May 2010 (www.startup-book.com/2010/05/04/university-licensing-to-start-ups) followed by
– University licensing to start-ups (Part 2) in June 2010 (www.startup-book.com/2010/06/15/university-licensing-to-start-ups-part-2)
– How much Equity Universities take in Start-ups from IP Licensing? in November 2013 (www.startup-book.com/2013/11/05/how-much-equity-universities-take-in-start-ups-from-ip-licensing)
– Should universities get rich with their spin-offs? in June 205 (www.startup-book.com/2015/06/09/should-universities-get-rich-with-their-spin-offs)

bioe2015

Co-authored by 18 people from Stanford, Oxford, Harvard, the University of California in San Francisco and the University College London, the article describes what should know people interested in getting a license on intellectual property to create a start-up. The paper begins with “As an academic […]entrepreneur, you will face many challenges” and the second paragraph follows with “In addition, you will most likely have to negotiate with your university’s technology transfer office (TTO) to license the intellectual property (IP) related to your research”.

What are these challenges related to TTO? they are written in the article in bold fonts as follows: Overcoming information asymmetries – Long negotiations – Inexperience – Lack of funding – Conflict of interest rules – Experienced legal counsel. This means that as a future entrepreneur, you should be prepared and ideally be knowledgeable about these.

The challenges

The main challenge seems to be the administrative complexity and opacity (page 1), including confidentiality of contracts, which makes it difficult for outside observers to understand fair market terms (page 1 again). In the end, they nearly conclude with: “Indeed, even for the universities for whom we have data regarding equity policies, it was often hidden deep within a jumble of legalese. To that end we encourage universities and research institutes receiving public monies to be fully transparent in their equity and royalty policies, and not use these information asymmetries as a bargaining advantage against fledgling […]entrepreneurs.”

On page 2, I note:
– A negotiation may be long (6-12 months, even 18 months) and one way to make it short is to take the proposed terms.
– A way to mitigate inexperience is by “preparing an adequate business plan or strategy for your IP before approaching your TTO” or by “bringing aboard team members with prior experience in […] commercialization to improve your team’s credibility”.
– Lack of funding can be partially solved by signing “license option agreements”.
– Conflict of interest rules “exist to prevent academics from playing both sides of a technology licensing deal or devoting too much time to nonacademic obligations”. Furthermore, “TTOs represent the interests of the university (not the academic), yet the academic is technically an employee of the university. “Our policy is to never negotiate directly with the faculty,” says a US-based TTO representative”.
– Experienced legal counsel is advised for assessing the quality of the IP but also because “[…]entrepreneurs often fail to appreciate the opportunity cost to the TTO in outlicensing. If a technology is licensed to an ineffective team (particularly with an exclusive license), the university forgoes any success or revenue it may have received from licensing the technology to a better organized industry partner. Moreover, universities have limited resources and manpower to protect IP, and, for this reason, prefer to license technology to teams they believe are well prepared to commercialize it.”

The equity deal terms

“Perhaps the most striking difference between the United States and United Kingdom is seen with equity deal terms. In the United Kingdom, a typical licensing deal is a rarely negotiable 50:50 split between the university and the academic […]entrepreneur, whereas US interviewees often reported universities taking a 5–10% negotiable equity share.”

You now understand why I said I was not convinced in my previous post about taking the UK as a reference. The US practice shows space for debate. You may check again my article from November 2013, where you will see that a typical deal is either 10% at creation or 5% after significant funding. Very rarely more.

Again the authors mention “US founders often do not realize that some deal terms are negotiable, including upfront fees, option payments, equity, royalty payments, milestone payments, territories covered, field of use and exclusivity versus nonexclusivity” and “In the UK, licensing deal equity terms are often perceived as being non-negotiable, though this is not always the case. In fact, many institute policies explicitly state that equity terms are negotiable.” This may however make the process lengthier.

On page 4, the authors add: “It is difficult to understand the justification of UK TTOs, such as Oxford’s Isis Innovation, taking 50% of a company’s equity at formation — which after investment can leave the academic entrepreneur with an extremely low stake from the get-go, for what was likely years of work, and will require many years and millions more to develop.” and indeed “The data would suggest that TTOs taking less upfront and leaving more to the academic and investors who will actually carry the idea forward pays off in the long term. Simply put: holding a smaller piece of something is still more valuable than a large piece of nothing.”

The mystery of royalties

“It is also worth noting that while a discussion on royalties was outside the scope of this study, it was clear from our research that many university TTOs “double dip” and take significant equity and royalty.” but again “Perhaps more disquieting than the out-sized equity and royalty stakes that universities are claiming is the lack of transparency from many universities on this critical issue.”

My conclusion: any wannabe entrepreneur should read this short 5-page paper and be prepared to negotiate. I would love as much as the authors that universities and research institutes be fully transparent in their equity and royalty policies, though I am also aware of the possibly weakened position of universities which would do so.

Two Challenges of Technology Transfer – Part 1, the National Systems.

Leave a reply

Two documents have led me to describe two types of challenges facing the technology transfer of academic institutions.
– First, at a macro-economic level, the challenge comes from the various possible administrative structures, but also the complexity of the operations. The report Transfert et Valorisation dans le PIA (in French) by Bruno Rostand compares the national policies of Germany and the United Kingdom to that of France.
– Secondly, at the micro-economic level, the journal Nature published the article Keys to the kingdom with the subtitle, What you should know about your technology transfer office. I will come back to this in my next post.

Mise en page 1

The report of Bruno Rostand addresses the challenges that France meets after having established regional structures for technology transfer, the “SATT”. He notes that Germany has built a similar system with its “PVA” in the Länder. In both cases, there is a goal of financial independence which seems difficult to achieve if not unrealistic, despite the existence of public subsidies. In Germany, two of these companies have even filed for bankruptcy in Lower Saxony in 2006 and Berlin in 2013.

Why such difficulties? Because the returns on investment have not been up to the expectations. For example, approximately €10M euros have been invested each year in the form of public funds in Germany, but revenues remained much lower. In addition the regional structure has its limitations, as it is difficult to gain expertise in all areas of technology.

The United Kingdom has a different situation. The state has been a marginal actor and technology transfer was organized either by universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College) or by private structures close to venture capital (IP group) which organically helped in structuring technology transfer. Through externalization, these organizations have become private organizations, which have become rich in financial and human resources. At Oxford, ISIS employs 80 people for £14.5m in revenue in 2014. Imperial innovation has been publicly traded since 2006, employs 45 people and generated a profit of £27M in 2014. Imperial innovation has expanded its initial base in collaborating with other universities. Finally, the IP Group has agreements with over 15 universities for a profit of £9.5M in 2014. The report shows very different philosophies, whether public or private, with profitability as an end or not, with an obvious entrepreneurial dimension in the UK. if the focus on start-ups is important, this will lead to different structures, including maturation funds and incubators.

The report also shows that a licensing policy and a policy to support the creation of start-ups are very different. Finally, the new TT structures often have the sole responsibility of the development and maturation of IP, while research collaborations with industry remain the responsibility of universities. This separation could be a weakness when the two topics are linked.

A sensitive issue is that of exclusivity that can create tension when TT management is pooled over many universities. Some universities want to maintain some autonomy, especially in areas where the technical competence of the TT structure seems weak to them. Another sensitive issue is that of the structure by region while a transregional structure by field of expertise might be more appropriate. (The report also addresses research partnerships and international cooperation that I will not discuss here.)

In the final part, Rostand shows the complexity of the challenges. One must first define the mission of technology transfer which can be for profit or not. Externalization seems to be a trend in the three countries, but it has its advantages and disadvantages. It also seems that there is a lot of instability and fluctuations in funding cycles, which does not help to make an analysis of the transfer tools. The report also addresses the issue of human resources (types of skills and experience), another subject which may be related to the available resources of these organizations.

The only personal comment I make here is about my slight frustration at not having found in the report (which is extremely informative) an analysis of the US situation. The country of liberalism and private universities have very few external technology transfer structures, let alone for-profit. I have in mind WARF at University of Wisconsin-Madison – www.warf.org) while revenues of TT in the USA are significantly higher than in Europe. The explanation could simply come from a far more dynamic private innovation, regardless of all the systems in place.