University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office

Investment Firm Allied Minds to Commercialize Novel Technology from CU
Allied Minds, an investment corporation specializing in early stage university business ventures, has teamed with the University of Colorado to establish Illumasonix, LLC, a start-up company which is developing a non-invasive method to provide quantitative information on complex blood flow in the treatment of vascular disease. Dr. Robin Shandas, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at CU-Boulder and of Pediatrics and Cardiology at UCDHSC, is developing a system which uses ultrasound and FDA approved microbubbles to track blood flow.  This process will easily provide real-time assessment of blood flow and detect blockages.  “Our technology is intended to create a new high resolution ultrasound procedure to better detect vascular disease,” said Dr. Shandas.

TTO Announces Spring 2007 Proof-of-Concept Grants
The TTO has completed its Spring 2007 Proof of Concept grant solicitation for physical science proposals. The POCg program provides grants that enable advanced development and validation of promising CU technologies in order to increase commercialization potential. Proof-of-Concept funding for the Spring 2007 round was provided by the TTO and is designed to fill a funding gap between basic research funding and commercialization of technology by industry. Projects were selected for POC funding by the TTO using a competitive internal application process. The winning proposals are:

• Josef Michl, Chemistry and Biochemistry, CU-Boulder. “Synthesis of Bulk Left-Handed Materials with Response in the Visible,” with applications in optical imaging.

• Robert R. McLeod, Electrical and Computer Engineering, CU-Boulder. “Tape Casting of High Performance Polymer Optical Imaging Arrays.”

• Charles R. Nuttelman, Chemical and Biological Engineering, CU-Boulder, Poly(Ethylene Glycol)-Based Custom Zymographic Assays,” with applications for the study of enzymes and enzymatic activity.

• Wayne Ward, Center for Spoken Language Research, CU-Boulder. “An Industrial Strength Natural Language Processing Toolkit.”

• Karen M. Newell Rogers, Biology, CU-Colorado Springs. “Selective Modulation of Gamma Delta T Cells to Treat Autoimmune Diseases, HIV, and Cancer.”

TTO Hosts Summer Program Orientation
On May 14 and 15 the TTO held its yearly orientation session for students, interns, and members of the business community. Sessions included the role of the technology transfer office in the university, the resources of the TTO, and how university culture affects tech transfer; guest speaker Jeff Bojar of Snell & Wilmer gave an industry perspective on technology licensing.

Legislative Update: Matters of Interest to the Technology Transfer Community
HB 1060 – Bioscience Research Grants passed the House and Senate in essentially the form it was originally introduced and it awaits the Governor’s signature. HB 1060 builds on the HB 1360 legislation put in place in 2006.  It provides $500,000 for proof-of-concept university research related to advancing biofuels intellectual property (IP).  Like HB 1360, the biofuels research funding requires an equal financial match by the recipient university.   HB 1060 also provides $2M in State funds to be awarded as a grant to bioscience (including biofuels) companies that license or option university bioscience IP.  The awardee companies must have received a Phase 1 Federal agency Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR) research award. The State funding for any one bioscience company would not exceed $100,000.   The HB 1060 funds would be used primarily for business development purposes.  The Colorado university technology transfer community is grateful for the leadership in the legislature and the support of the Colorado BioScience Association (CBSA) that has engendered this creative legislation in support of the Colorado economy.

SB 182 – Higher Education Competitive Federally Funded Research passed the House and Senate and awaits signing by the Governor. The approximate amount of the funding source, which is and will continue to be housed at the Department of Higher Education, is 40% of the existing, unencumbered TAG funds (which will equal approximately $500k); and an ongoing flow of 40% of the portion of the waste tire fee that comes in to this fund (coming to an approximate $320K per year).

CU Technology and Licensee Companies in the News

ALD NanoSolutions Awarded Phase II STTR NSF Grant
ALD NanoSolutions, Inc., a CU licensee, has announced the award of a $456,292 Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from the National Science Foundation for “Improved Boron Nitride Materials for Enhanced Thermal Management." 

Dharmacon Technology Enables Groundbreaking Discovery in Cancer Research
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. announced April 17 that the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has made a groundbreaking discovery using the company’s Dharmacon RNA-interference reagents, developed by Lafayette, CO-based Dharmacon Inc., a company formed from CU intellectual property. The UT Southwestern team has identified 87 genes that appear to affect the susceptibility of human cancer cells to certain chemotherapy drug treatments.

CU Researchers Looking for a Few Tough Plants
CU professors Barbara Demmig-Adams and William Adams, a wife-and-husband team, are working to find hardy plants for future use as fuel crops to create cellulosic ethanol, hydrogen or other liquid fuels. They aim to identify or breed plants and micro-organisms able to withstand the sun's onslaught without withering during the long-term process of creating biofuel.

UCCC Researchers Look Closely at Saliva for Lung Cancer Screening
Researchers at the University of Colorado Cancer Center are collecting spit to determine if saliva holds valuable information for screening for lung cancer, the number one cancer killer.

WriteToLearn Named Finalist in Association of Educational Awards
Pearson Knowledge Technologies announced in April that WriteToLearn™, a Web-based learning tool that helps students develop writing and reading comprehension skills, is a finalist in the Association of Educational Publishers 2007 Distinguished Achievement Awards Program. WriteToLearn is based on the text analysis engine developed by CU licensee Knowledge Analysis Technologies.

CU-Boulder Virtual Language Therapists On Leading Edge; Focus Of French Workshop
Researchers from CU’s Center for Spoken Language Research (CSLR) are among a group of U.S. innovators who traveled to France in early May to share their expertise with French researchers who want to develop virtual speech and language therapists.

Sixteen CU/NREL Energy Research Seed Grants Selected For Funding
Sixteen renewable energy and sustainability research projects involving faculty and students at the University of Colorado at Boulder and scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory have been selected for funding beginning this summer.

People

TTO and Colorado at the 2007 BIO Convention
TTO Licensing Associate Andrew Gano represented CU at the BIO International Convention in Boston. He writes:

• Having doubled in size over the last five years to a total of 22,366 attendees, this year’s Bio International Convention did not disappoint.  Beyond the celebrity keynotes Michael J. Fox and Queen Noor of Jordan, a wealth of sessions offered serious discussion around everything from ethics to the latest financing tools for upstart biotech companies.  Colorado was well represented by industry professionals from economic development, technology transfer, and private industry that competed fiercely with other states for attention to its growing biotechnology cluster.  One of the more impressive announcements for new state initiatives was from Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, who announced a commitment of $1B over 10 years to build new life sciences centers and supplement federal research grants. 

Adam Rubenstein, TTO advisor and assistant director of the Fitzsimons BioBusiness Incubator (FBBi) also blogged throughout his time at the convention; read his comments at http://biovoice.blogspot.com.

TTO Intern Accepts Position at BaroFold, Inc.
TTO intern Eliana Gomez has accepted a position at BaroFold, Inc., a CU licensee company. While at TTO, Eliana analyzed patentability and market potential of technologies disclosed to the TTO, and worked on marketing them to appropriate companies. Based in Boulder, BaroFold is commercializing its proprietary protein disaggregation / refolding technology, facilitating the disaggregation, refolding, formulation and improved safety of protein biotherapeutics. 

Boulder Innovation Center President Steps Down
Doug Collier announced that he will be stepping down from president of the Boulder Innovation Center (BIC) at the end of June. TTO works closely with BIC to commercialize CU technologies, and wishes Doug the best in his new endeavor. 

CU-Boulder Researchers Win Awards, Grants

• INSTAAR Director To Lead New NSF Earth Modeling Research Effort
  The National Science Foundation has awarded Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research Director James Syvitski $4.2M in a cooperative agreement over five years to lead a national effort to model the changing face of the Earth's surface.

• Scientists Elected To Prestigious National Academies
  CU-Boulder physics professor Noel Clark was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and Deborah Jin, an adjoint associate professor of physics at CU-Boulder and a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• Researcher Wins Grant To Study How Children With Implanted Hearing Devices Respond To Sound, Language
  Phillip M. Gilley, a postdoctoral researcher in CU-Boulder's speech, language and hearing sciences department, and Arizona State University collaborator Michael F. Dorman researcher have won a $50,000 federal seed grant for work that could one day lead to the development of clinically useful and less invasive ways of studying the brain activity of children who wear implanted hearing devices.  

• Inventors and Scientists Awarded Research Fellowships
  Professor Mark Winey of the molecular, cellular and developmental biology department received a Guggenheim Fellowship to support his research group’s work in analyzing the assembly and function of a cellular structure known as a microtubule organizing center that has implications for human health issues ranging from genetic defects and cancer to eye disease. Assistant Professor Heather Lewandowski of the physics department, who is an associate fellow of JILA, was selected to receive a Sloan Research Fellowship; her research group is cooling molecules and atoms to near absolute zero by using sophisticated lasers and electric fields.

• Professor Wins Prestigious Microbiology Prize
  University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Norman Pace has been awarded the 2007 Abbott-American Society for Microbiology Lifetime Achievement Award, the society's highest honor, for his groundbreaking research in microbial ecology.

• CU Researchers Collaborate with Solar Company, Win DOE Funding
  CU-Boulder researchers Mike Brandemuehl, John Zhai, Regan Zane and Bob Erickson were part of an industry-led team of public and private partners that received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) last month. The proposal, which could receive up to $20M over three years, was headed by Miasolé, a Santa Clara (CA)-based company that is working to reduce the cost of solar roofs by creating low-cost solar systems with integrated electronics.  

Interview: Hank Baker, SVP of Marketing for Forest City, on Fitzsimons
While a biotech incubator is progressing at Fitzsimons, Hank Baker says tremendous competition makes attracting such research firms difficult. “Bio is the flavor of the day. It's what everybody is going after. It's a wonderful, clean industry - a growth industry with high salaries. Our challenge is to find ways both non-economic and economic to attract those companies.”

Do you know of a recent award, new position or transition of interest to the CU tech community? Please send information to TTOnews@cu.edu.

TTO's Learning Laboratory: The Student Connection

Marketing Intern Spring Projects
Spring TTO marketing intern Kathleen Monteferrante will be leaving in May to return home to Castle Rock for the summer.  Kathleen worked on many projects during her spring internship and was responsible for company research and contact, as well as creating and distributing various marketing materials for a wide variety of technologies.

Spotlight On:

CU-Boulder Technology of the Month:
CU1804B – Reversible, High Energy Density H2 Storage Using Zeolite Layers

UCDHSC Technology of the Month:
CU1581H – Fast Multi-slice Mapping of Myelin Water Fraction in the Brain

Upcoming Events

Rocky Mountain Clinical Trials Symposium
May 21, Hyatt Regency, Denver
This full-day symposium will bring together individuals from throughout the clinical trial community to identify emerging legal issues and discuss practical ways to address them. In addition to individual presentations, the program will feature interactive discussion to allow participants to raise issues of particular interest to them and hear what leading legal practitioners think.

19th Annual Colorado Capital Conference
May 22, Marriott City Center, Denver
The Colorado Capital Conference, hosted by the Rockies Venture Club, is focused on connecting companies to funds. The event has two tracks: one designed to educate entrepreneurs and one designed as an investor forum where prescreened, rehearsed deals are presented to a panel of funding sources - angels and venture capitalists - and receive real-time, professional and audience feedback.

5th Annual Intellectual Property & Technology Institute
May 24-25, Adam’s Mark Hotel, Denver
The 5th Annual Rocky Mountain Intellectual Property Institute offers unmatched learning about the most recent developments and trends in intellectual property law and abundant networking opportunities. 

2007 CSIA Annual Apex Awards
June 5, location TBA
The event showcases Colorado’s advanced technology industry and serves to promote Colorado as a center for advanced technology development - highlighting Colorado companies and entrepreneurs, collaboration, innovation, and market-based success.

Colorado Renewable Energy: Leading by Example
June 7-10, Grand Hotel, Steamboat Springs
The conference, hosted by the Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES), will include technical, economy and action & policy tracks, as well as featuring workshops and a mini job fair. Keynote Speakers include Chuck Kutscher (NREL) and Patricia Limerick (Center for the American West). 

Nanomaterials Symposium 2007
June 25-27, Brown Palace Hotel, Denver
Nanomaterials conference focusing on the latest end use developments and commercial applications. The program and pre-conference workshop will promote cross industry knowledge transfer and will be the ideal platform to gain industry allies throughout the nanomaterial supply chain.

BioBootcamp 2007: Building Life Science Businesses
June 28-29, Holland & Hart, Denver
Attendees will learn valuable information from experienced practitioners about how to build a company designed to commercialize bioscience technologies while avoiding dangerous pitfalls that are typically encountered along the way. This program is free and open to investors, professionals and entrepreneurs in the bioscience industry.

BioBusiness Seminar: Business Development 101
July 10, Fitzsimons Bioscience Park, Aurora
This free seminar, for bioscience companies only, is sponsored by the Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority and the Colorado BioScience Association (CBSA). Register online.

TTO Seminar: Patenting Therapeutic Targets
July 18, Research Complex 1, Health Sciences Center, Aurora
The TTO presents this free lunch-hour seminar, which will cover the patent process for research in drug target identification and discovery. CU faculty entrepreneurs Doug Graham and Rick Duke will talk about their experiences with the commercialization process, and attorney Laura Zeman of Snell & Wilmer will discuss patent considerations around these technologies.

2007 Southwest Renewable Energy Conference
July 31-Aug 2, University of Colorado, Boulder
With both policy and technical tracks, the Southwest Renewable Energy Conference will present a wide range of information to encourage thoughtful evaluation and discussion regarding the development of wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy on tribal, federal, state and private lands.

BioBreakfast and Medical Device Symposium
August 22, location TBA
Immediately after the CBSA BioBreakfast, the TTO will continue the medical device focus with a symposium on the topic.  The symposium will highlight medical device technologies from CU and other Colorado universities, as well as the capacity of universities and local companies to commercialize medical device technologies.  TTO is currently seeking volunteers for the Program Committee for this event – please email techtransfer@cu.edu.

BioEntrepreneurs Club
September 6, Holland and Hart, Denver
David Allen presents an annual update of technology transfer at CU.  Special emphasis is given to biotech technology transfer.

To have your event featured here, please send an email to TTOnews@cu.edu.

CU Resources

New Funding Opportunities for Biofuels Research
The Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels (C2B2) is a partnership between petrochemical companies and the newly formed Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory. C2B2 will begin funding research projects in a wide variety of disciplines during the summer of 2007. In order to make CU researchers more aware of the research opportunities in biofuels and biorefining, the CU Energy Initiative is hosting a series of brown bag luncheon meetings during May.

Innovation in the News

Supreme Court Tightens Obviousness Standards
The Supreme Court on April 30 made it easier to invalidate patents, scaling back a legal test that has fueled an era of protection for new products. In a unanimous ruling, the justices said a federal appeals court has gone too far in embracing a standard that addresses one of the most basic issues in patent law: whether a claimed invention is obvious and therefore unworthy of patent protection.

• The United States Supreme Court, in crafting the recent KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (PDF) decision, has overruled a long-held standard used by the Federal Circuit to judge whether a combination invention is obvious.  Prior to KSR, the Federal Circuit utilized what had come to be known as the “TSM Test” – in order to reject a patent application for a combination invention as obvious, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had to show a Teaching, Suggestion, or Motivation in the prior art to make the invention.  The Supreme Court held that this test was too rigid and did not allow the USPTO to use its own judgments, as well as the judgments of other possible experts, to decide if an invention was truly obvious.  The court did not abolish the TSM test; instead it refined the test by including terms like “predictability,” “flexibility,” and “common sense” in the obviousness analysis of combination patents.  Thus, it appears that expert witness testimony will become far more important both as a method for proving the non-obviousness of a patent application (i.e. via submission of expert declarations to the PTO), and for invalidating a patent in a lawsuit.  The immediate impact on pharmaceutical patents is unclear, but what is clear is that some inventions, such as combination drug patents, will face this new standard which could hinder these patent applications during prosecution and make the issued patents more prone to invalidity lawsuits.  It may also have an appreciable impact in the high tech industry, where incremental patents have been issued that have been used to induce settlements from companies with combination products that rely on such incremental patents. Finally, it may be the Supreme Court’s first serious attempt to rein in so-called “patent trolls,” especially those who purchase patents that cannot stand alone commercially in hopes of leveraging possible infringement cases into lucrative settlements.

  This analysis prepared by David Poticha, CU TTO Licensing Associate (david.poticha@cu.edu).  

House Panel Urges Patent Bill Compromise
Lawmakers are urging the pharmaceutical and high technology industries to forge a compromise on the proposed Patent Reform Act of 2007 (PDF), introduced April 18 by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif. Software and high-technology business groups strongly support Berman's proposal while pharmaceutical and biotech trade groups have expressed misgivings about many of its provisions.

Denver #5 Destination for Biotech R&D
Armed with new sources of venture capital and government incentives, new locations are emerging to compete with the "gold- standard" locations for biotech R&D. Denver is now #5 among US Life Science R&D destinations, according to Site Selection magazine.

Colorado Biotechs Improve
Colorado's biotech sector is getting closer to breaking even, with its losses narrowing last year, and research and development investment in the state is on the rise, according to a new report. "Biotech is an innovation- based industry, and R&D is a critical metric," said Scott Sarazen, the global biotech markets leader at Ernst & Young, which prepared the study.

Venture Capital Cools in State, But Q1 Still Solid
Venture capital activity in Colorado in the latest quarter cooled off from the comparable period of 2006 as the amount of money flowing to state companies and the number of deals dropped, a new report shows. Colorado companies attracted $106.1 million in financing in the first quarter of 2007, down 6 percent from $113.1 million a year earlier, according to the findings released April 23 by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young.

International Journalists Focus on Colorado
Journalists from around the world toured Colorado May 7 through 11. During their visit, organized by the U.S. State Department and hosted by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at CU-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business, 15 prominent international reporters got a glimpse of the New Energy Economy and industry now emerging in Colorado.

Colorado Tech Jobs Decline
A decline in Colorado's technology work force in 2005 helped drop the state to the No. 3 spot for the percentage of tech workers that make up its private-sector work force. Virginia was No. 1 and Massachusetts No. 2. Both states gained tech jobs.

Fall Opening of Campus Boon for Aurora
The state's third-largest city is embarking on what could be its biggest and most important redevelopment project ever as major pieces of the new Anschutz medical campus open this fall.

Ritter: Invest in Colorado
Harnessing Colorado's wind, sun and intellectual resources could make the state an economic power, but only if it invests in health-care coverage, transportation and higher education, Gov. Bill Ritter told Boulder's business leaders April 26.

SunEdison Breaks Ground on 8MW Solar Plant in Colorado
SunEdison and Xcel Energy have begun construction on the 8.22-megawatt Alamosa Photovoltaic Solar Plant in Colorado, an important step for Xcel Energy in meeting Colorado Amendment 37 which requires large electric utilities to generate 10 percent of their power through renewable energy sources by 2015.

Turning the Tables on Venture Capitalists?
Via their investment decisions, venture capitalists (VCs) regularly “vote” on the quality of entrepreneurs and their ideas. While VCs do receive scrutiny from the investors, they rarely get rated by entrepreneurs. A new website, thefunded.com, is seeking to change that.

Universities Drive Biotech Advancement
Universities and public research institutes, rather than companies, are driving advances in biotechnology, according to a worldwide patent analysis released May 7 at the BIO conference in Boston.

Science Goes to China: What You Should Know
When Alastair Murchie decided recently that he wanted to move back into academic research after a decade in the biotech world, he cast his net wide in search of the right position. The 48-year-old molecular biologist was living in Cambridge, England but was willing to consider jobs in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and China. When the offers came in, he found the choice was easy. “Really, the best startup package I was offered was in China,” he says. 

NYU Sells Partial Remicade Interest for $650M
Royalty Pharma and New York University announced May 4 that NYU has sold a portion of NYU's worldwide royalty interest in Remicade® to Royalty Pharma. NYU received $650 million in cash up-front plus additional payments should yearly sales of Remicade® exceed certain agreed sales hurdles.

Roundup: University, Community, State, National and International Initiatives

• Iowa Advances $100M Fuel Plan
  A major step in a $100M plan aimed at boosting Iowa’s world standing in renewable fuel production was approved April 24 by the Iowa House; it would allocate $25 million during each of the next four years to launch more aggressive research and development related to renewable fuel production.

• Massachusetts Governor Wants to Borrow $1B for Life Science Strategy
  Gov. Deval Patrick unveiled a comprehensive, collaborative Massachusetts Life Science Strategy which includes a 10-year, $1B investment package to support biomedical and stem cell research.

• Texas Businessman Invests in Biotech Fund
  Emergent Technologies Inc. in Austin announced the formation of the $27.1M Emergent Technologies Fund IV, aimed at taking technology out of the University of Texas labs and into the marketplace.

• Washington Approves Life Sciences Discovery Fund
  The 2007 legislative session ended last month with the approval of the first installment of $70M over the 2007-09 biennium for the Life Sciences Discovery Fund.

• North Dakota Enacts Renewable Energy Plan, Funds Key TBED Initiatives A number of crucial initiatives introduced earlier this year by Gov. John Hoeven were recently enacted by the state legislature, including a $42M renewable energy plan and $20M in new funding for university-based Centers of Excellence.

• Ohio Rewarding Commercializing Universities with Cash
  Two weeks ago, the Ohio Board of Regents selected three universities as the first-ever recipients for Technology Commercialization Incentive (TCI) awards, totaling $500,000.

• Florida Investing $400M+ for VC, Research Centers and Tech Transfer
  Initiatives designed to encourage cutting-edge research, improve access to capital and attract promising companies garnered more than $400M in the state budget.

• Indiana Tech Investments to Surpass $100M
  Indiana's General Assembly adjourned for the year after passing a $29B budget that included more than $100M for tech-based economic development, including a new $20M Life Sciences Fund.

External Resources

Does Localizing University Tech Transfer Come at a Price?
A recent paper, Harnessing Success: Determinants of University Technology Licensing Performance (PDF), adds to the growing body of knowledge on the topic, exploring how the differences between universities may impact the income generated by licensing technology.

Where Biotech is Headed
Ernst & Young has completed its annual assessment of the global biotechnology industry and the news is very good. Capital raised by biotech firms grew by an impressive 42% in 2006, reaching a global total of $27.9 billion. The report dubs 2006 “the year of the deal,” as the value of mergers and acquisitions reached the second highest level in history. Learn more about the Ernst & Young report, Beyond Borders: Global Biotechnology Report 2007.

Adventures in Fair-Use Doctrine: Science Journals and Blogs
Fair-use doctrine, as codified in U.S. law, allows people to reproduce portions of copyrighted works "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research." But there's a spanner in the works, as University of Michigan grad student Shelley Batts can attest: Copyright holders can't seem to agree on just which uses are fair.

Recent Research on Entrepreneurship
In his recent Once Bitten, Twice Shy? The Performance of Entrepreneurial Restarts, Georg Metzger of the Centre for European Economic Research reports that in general, prior experience with other start-ups increases the likelihood of success with future ventures; however, if one of the managing owners has experienced a venture failure - meaning bankruptcy - the newer firm is likely to be less successful.  Another recent Centre discussion paper, Exploring the Relationship Between Scientist Human Capital and Firm Performance by Dirk Czarnitzki and Andrew Toole, asks whether academic scientists bring valuable human capital to the companies they found or join, and concludes that in some cases, increasing the scientific experience of these entrepreneurial academics actually hinders the firm's patenting performance.

Parting Quotes