Bioscience Bridge's blog

25 July 2012 -It’s been about a year now since the New England Journal of Medicine published an article by AUTM President Ashley Stevens finding public-sector research had a more immediate effect on improving public health than was previously realized. (Stevens AJ, et al. N Engl J Med 2011;364:535-41)

Just about the same time, we at Bioscience Bridge were making connections on behalf of university research from Boise State, Tulane, and Purdue.

This research article underscores the important role the universities play in improving healthcare. And why Bioscience Bridge continues to create attention to commercialization of intellectual property.

18 July 2012 - Beginning in fall 2012 and extending through mid-2013, the US is overhauling the patent-approval process for the first time since 1952.

The most significant change is that our current first-to-invent system (which favors creators) will become a first-to-file system (which will favors, obviously, whoever files first). This reform will speed innovation, Uncle Sam says.

You can check the numbers yourself in a recent article from FAST COMPANY. Click here to read the full expert analysis.

From our point of view at Bioscience Bridge, there are two relevant insights to university tech transfer:

25 June 2012 - I know how it is with inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs. In the beginning, there’s just you and maybe a partner. You do everything. You make the calls, and you answer the phone. You make the presentations, and you make the powerpoint. You write the website and you code it. You order the midnight pizza and you take out the trash.

So, when it’s time to “be strategic,” I know how tough it can be.

A recent article in Inc. Magazine helps provide some guidance.

18 February 2012 - A childhood fascination with magnetism is about to translate into a significant advance in the treatment of breast cancer, which will at the same time improve safety and reduce costs.

In one of the first clinical applications of magnetic nanoparticles to reach the market, Endomagnetics has developed a technology that offers a safer, cheaper way to detect whether breast tumors have spread.

8 December 2011 - Lately, I’ve been sharing some views on “A Faster Path from Lab to Market” (from the title of a Harvard Business Review article).

Some thought-leaders have made a case that current restrictions imposed by U.S. research universities on the ways their faculty can commercialize federally funded discoveries are slowing the diffusion of new technologies.

As readers of this blog will know, most universities channel commercialization through centralized technology licensing offices established in the wake of the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act. Over time, according to some, too many of these offices have become monopolies that slow the process of commercialization due to the constraints of the current system.

28 September 2011 - In other recent posts, I’ve been sharing some views on “A Faster Path from Lab to Market” (from the title of a Harvard Business Review article).

As universities and federal labs step up the commercialization of their innovations through tech transfer, the discoveries by faculty members often create “star scientists.”

Beyond the impact of star scientists on specific universities or firms, there are many regional benefits.

Kauffman Foundation researchers Robert Litan and Dane Stangler write that the mere existence of star scientists in a given region has a propensity to increase the number of technology startups in the area.”

18 June 2011 - If you took academic innovators out of the commercialization process, it could significantly reduce the likelihood that the discoveries from the lab will be turned quickly to productive uses by society outside the university.

That’s our view here at Bioscience Bridge, because we believe creative academic thinking alone cannot promote medical advancement unless it is applied to real-world scientific problems and challenges.

In this blog, let’s look at some numbers on how the spreading of ideas is regularly best accomplished when an innovation is commercialized. This gives the innovation the infusion of human and financial capital that enables innovations to scale up.

Here are some numbers that show where we’re headed:

8 March 2011 - Over the last few years, experts in our field have been debating ways to create “A Faster Path from Lab to Market” (from the title of Litan and Mitchell’s article in Harvard Business Review).

Increasingly, universities and federal labs are accelerating the dissemination of their innovation through commercialization activities—particularly the licensing of discoveries by faculty members either to existing firms or to companies they form. Some have argued whether commercialization should be a university function at all, since they believe that universities exist to further the creation of new basic knowledge – not to engage in commercialization.

25 January 2011 - Even as knowledge of cancer at the molecular and nanometer level has improved, advances in more targeted treatments have been slow.

In fact, most current cancer therapies (even newer agents) do not effectively differentiate between cancerous and normal cells. This indiscriminate action leads to systemic toxicity and adverse effects, such as bone marrow suppression, neurotoxicity, and cardiomyopathy.

To target pathogenic cells while sparing healthy body tissues, we present uniquely designed Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles. ZnO-NPs apply proven synthesis, properties, and mechanisms to deliver anticancer therapy in a cell-specific manner.

Click here to download a complete Technology Summary.

18 January 2011 - Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan, the co-founders of HubSpot , were MIT classmates.

Both Brian and Dharmesh took the New Enterprises course (fondly known as 15.390) focused on entrepreneurship. HubSpot was kicked-off, in part, during the New Enterprises class in Spring 2006, so the course has particular significance to them.

As a technology transfer agency working with universities, we at Bioscience Bridge closely follow success stories of "sales and marketing for startups."

When working with early-stage technologies we use a proven process designed to configure the technologies’ “road map” called Strategic GPS^® Navigation Process. This process: