CU-Boulder Technology of the Month:

Three-Dimensional Super-resolution Optical Imaging in the Nanometer Regime

UC Denver Technology of the Month:

TTO Responds to White House Technology Commercialization Request

Last month the university technology transfer community received a request for information from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council, asking for input on how to support the commercialization of federally-funded research and Proof of Concept Centers. CU TTO has submitted two white papers in response to this request: "University Technology Transfer Effectiveness" (PDF) and "The University of Colorado Proof of Concept (POC) Program" (PDF).

Boulder Innovation Center Tracks its Impact

Since 2006, clients of the Boulder Innovation Center (BIC) have added 249 jobs, notched cumulative revenue of $59.4 million and raised $30.7 million in capital, according to a metrics report released last month by the local business incubator. The 2009 Metrics Report includes data resulting from annual surveys of past and current clients of the nonprofit, which was formed in mid-2005 to assist in the growth of startups and early-stage companies and also to help commercialize emerging technologies. David Allen, associate vice president for technology transfer at CU, lauded the university's relationship with the center, noting that dozens of technologies are passed to the nonprofit on an annual basis.

GlobeImmune Drug Gets Positive Results
CU licensee GlobeImmune Inc.'s hepatitis C drug showed positive results at the end of its phase 2b clinical trial. Tarmogens are whole, heat-killed recombinant S. cerevisiae yeast that express antigens from one or more disease-related proteins. GlobeImmune's GI-5005 Tarmogen is a therapeutic vaccine product candidate that contains conserved HCV proteins and is designed to generate an HCV specific T-cell response.

ARCA Reaches Agreement with FDA on Heart-drug Study

CU licensee ARCA biopharma said it reached an agreement with the U.S. health regulator on the design of a trial to test its experimental treatment for heart failure. According to a special protocol assessment agreement, the drug, bucindolol, will be evaluated in a trial that plans to enroll 3,200 patients with chronic heart failure who have the specific genotype that appears to respond most favorably to the drug.

InDevR to Collaborate with Scientists at the CDC to Develop New Influenza Virus Surveillance Assay

CU licensee InDevR, developer of advanced life science products, announced its collaboration with scientists in the Influenza Division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta to develop a unique influenza microarray assay. This simple yet powerful microarray assay has the potential to enhance influenza surveillance efforts around the globe by providing an affordable tool for public health scientists that do not have access to full genome sequencing.

BaroFold Grants Exclusive License for Interferon Beta Products Developed Using PreEMT™ Technology to Nuron Biotech

CU licensee BaroFold, Inc. announced that it has entered into an agreement to exclusively license PreEMT™ Technology to Nuron Biotech for the development of BaroFeron™ and follow-on Interferon beta products. BaroFeron is a proprietary recombinant human interferon beta being developed for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

eCortex Awarded $347K IARPA Research Contract

CU licensee and POCi recipient eCortex, Inc. was awarded a one-year contract to use its Leabra/Emergent-based brain models to explore the effect of embodying a learning model in a three-dimensional virtual environment. The title of the project is "Embodied Common Sense in Vision and Language," and it is sponsored by IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency) and the U.S. Army Research Office.

Department of Energy Grants Go to CU, OPX

Two Boulder projects have been chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive a total of $9.1M in grants for energy research that is expected to create jobs and speed innovation. CU licensee OPX Biotechnologies Inc. will receive $6M to engineer microorganisms to use renewable hydrogen and carbon-dioxide inputs for producing a biodiesel-equivalent fuel at low cost. A CU-Boulder lab headed by chemical engineering professors Richard Noble and Douglas Gin has been awarded $3.1M to create very-thin ionic liquid membranes that allow carbon dioxide to pass through at high rates, reducing the size and cost of membranes needed for carbon-dioxide capture.

New Inhalable Measles Vaccine May Lead to Vaccines for Other Diseases

A team of researchers led by CU-Boulder believe a dry powder, inhalable vaccine developed for measles prevention and slated for human clinical trials later this year in India will lead to other inhalable, inexpensive vaccines for illnesses ranging from tuberculosis to cervical cancer. The inhalable measles vaccine, developed by a team led by CU-Boulder chemistry and biochemistry professor Robert Sievers, involves mixing "supercritical" carbon dioxide with a weakened form of the measles virus. The process produces microscopic bubbles and droplets that are dried to make the inhalable powder. AKTIV-DRY, a Boulder company Sievers co-founded in 2002, is developing this vaccine platform for the marketplace.

UC Denver Research Offers Hope for Treating Skin Disorder Vitiligo

Podcast: Dr. Malik Kahook, UC Denver New Inventor of the Year

W3W3 radio spoke with Malik Kahook, (Associate Professor of Ophthalmology) about his work developing non-invasive treatment for glaucoma: "I have to admit that initially I did not know much about tech transfer. As a physician and a researcher, my focus really is on how do I get this device to work, how do I actually get this to show the benefit that would actually make me want to move it forward in further studies. And the last thing on the mind is really, how do I deal with tech transfer, how do I worry about intellectual property?" Listen to the podcast or view an archive of all TTO podcasts.

Russell L. Moore Named Interim Provost at CU-Boulder
University of Colorado at Boulder Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano named Russell L. Moore interim provost at CU-Boulder. Moore has served as interim vice chancellor for research since May of 2009, replacing Stein Sture who agreed to serve as interim provost. Sture will now return to his post as vice chancellor for research at CU-Boulder.

TTO Faculty Seminar: Colorado Center for Drug Discovery - Resources Available to Researchers

May 20, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora

This seminar will provide an overview of resources available to CU researchers from the new Colorado Center for Drug Discovery (C2D2), formed in 2010 to support rapid commercialization of academic drug discovery programs. This event is free and open to CU faculty from all campuses; RSVP required.

CPIA Quarterly Meeting: Raising Capital for a Photonics Company

May 20, Rocky Mountain Instruments, Lafayette

The Colorado Photonics Industry Association's quarterly meeting will include a panel discussion on the topic of raising capital for a photonics company. Online registration.

Application Deadline: Rocky Mountain Cleantech Open Competition

May 22

The Cleantech Open is a world-class training program and business competition designed to increase your chances of success. We provide extensive training and mentoring to help you refine and improve your business plan, tighten your pitch, and perfect your presentation skills. (View PDF brochure about the competition.)

Nano Renewable Energy Summit
May 24-25, Denver
The Nano Renewable Energy Summit is a gathering of world-renowned experts at the intersection of solar energy and nanotechnology, with a specific focus on the business, commercialization, and economic development potential of emerging technologies in the renewable energy and sustainability sectors.

Boulder/Denver New Technology Meetup Group

June 1, CU- Boulder
This ongoing event provides a forum for technologists and entrepreneurs to showcase the new (especially web-based) technology developing in Boulder/Denver tech community. Five companies have five minutes each to demonstrate their new technology, followed by five minutes for Q&A from the audience.

Bard Center 9th Annual Business Plan Competition

June 10, Grand Hyatt, Denver

The Bard Center Business Plan Competition seeks to promote the development of high-caliber business plans, recognize the most outstanding plans with cash and in-kind awards from area businesses, and encourage the creation of new businesses.

Colorado Green Tech Meetup

June 10, CU-Boulder

An ongoing event to support eco-entrepreneurs and others people involved and/or interested in green tech: energy generation, transportation, construction, and efficiency technologies. Businesses and researchers present new technologies, and attendees may announce business news, job openings, fundings, etc.

CU Gets $15M for Biotech Building

The University of Colorado at Boulder has received a $15M grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to be used toward the ongoing construction of a new biotechnology and biomedical research facility on its East Campus. Faculty and students will use the facility for research that is expected to make an impact on a wide variety of human health issues ranging from cancer, aging and cardiovascular disease to inherited diseases, vaccine development and regenerative medicine.

Colorado Center for Drug Discovery

Created in 2010, the Colorado Center for Drug Discovery (C2D2) is part of a State of Colorado legislative initiative (HB-08 1001) designed to generate economic development based on bioscience research at Colorado's research institutions. C2D2's mission is to advance drug discovery research within all Colorado research institutions. C2D2 will provide:

• Seed funding for drug discovery related research
• Development of the IT infrastructure to support drug discovery including web-based chemo- and bioinformatics
• Access to synthetic organic chemistry by linking chemistry faculty to drug discovery projects
• Provide small molecule compound libraries (including the creation of a faculty-derived compound collection) for screening
• Access to biopharma/medicinal chemistry 'consulting' expertise
• Access to drug discovery collaborations/ networking

CSU Opens Research Incubator for Vaccine Development
Colorado State University opened the Research Innovation Center, a research incubator that will focus on vaccines' development and transition to market. University and private researchers will work together on vaccines for West Nile virus, tuberculosis and other diseases

Universities Petition Supreme Court to Reverse Ruling That Could Cost Them Patent Rights

The American Council on Education and more than a dozen research universities and organizations (including the University of Colorado) have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the patent case in which Stanford University lost ownership of a series of patents because one of the university-employed inventors had assigned his ownership rights to a company as part of a consulting agreement.  In their brief to the court, the universities and organizations contend that letting stand a federal-appeals court ruling that grants ownership to the company, Roche Molecular Systems, will "cloud universities' title to thousands of federally funded inventions, contrary to Congress's intent and the public interest."

The New Realities for Tech Transfer

The financial crisis has blown a chill wind through US technology transfer offices, making it harder to fund start-up companies. This is prompting a search for new ways to reduce the risk profile of novel technologies, and at the same time increase internal efficiencies, cut costs and sharpen academic awareness of industry's needs.

SBA Raises SBIR Award Threshold Guidelines

In late March the SBA published a Notice of Final Amendments to their Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) Policy Directive.  For the SBIR program the SBA has raised the award threshold amounts from $100,000 to $150,000 for Phase I, and $750,000 to $1,000,000 for phase II. (This does not mean an agency MUST make awards that follow these parameters.)

Study Notes Disadvantages of Gene-by-Gene Exclusive Licensing
Granting exclusive gene-by-gene patents could lead to scrupulous lawsuits and could slow down research on genetic analysis and sequencing, according to a study by Duke University. Lila Feisee, vice president for global intellectual-property policy at BIO, said patent protection allows companies to raise capital for research.

The Biggest Job Creator You Never Heard Of: The Patent Office

As the U.S. President and Congress desperately search for ways to regain the 8.4 million jobs lost during the current recession, the greatest opportunity of all to spur job growth in our stalled economy may ironically lie right under their noses: in the Patent Office. For all its obscurity within the bowels of the federal bureaucracy, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) may be the single greatest facilitator of private sector job creation and economic growth in America.

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

$12M Available for Tech Commercialization Challenge

A competition aimed at helping move innovative ideas from the lab into the marketplace was announced in early May by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Administration (EDA). In partnership with the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, EDA will award $1M each to six teams across the nation with the most innovative ideas to drive technology commercialization and entrepreneurship. NSF will award $6M to SBIR grantees associated with the winning teams.

SUNY Plan Prioritizes 'Cradle-to-Career' Programs

Why Boulder Is America's Best Town for Startups

BusinessWeek recently declared Boulder the "top U.S. destination" for new tech startups, citing CU, the Colorado lifestyle, and the high concentration of scientists, engineers, etc. Read the whole thing here, or view a slideshow of the top 10 U.S. cities for startups. See also: Boulder, Colo., a Magnet for High-Tech Start-Ups (NYT article).

Dialing Down: Venture Capital Returns to Smaller Size Funds

In this issue of Venture Capital Update, SVB Capital reviews historical return data and finds evidence to support the commonly-held view that funds at the smaller end of the size spectrum consistently outperform larger funds across vintage years.

Profs Say Nothing to Fix with Venture Capital Model

U.S. institutional investors are shunning venture capital at exactly the wrong time, two private equity professors say in a yet-to-be published paper.

Bioscience Jobs Grew During Recession, Says Report

During the first year of the current U.S. recession, the bioscience industry continued to create jobs, according to a recent report from the Battelle Memorial Institute and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). While overall employment fell by 0.7 percent in 2008, U.S. bioscience employment grew 1.4 percent.

Getting Better at Biotech

The biotechnology skill set is a moving target. Biotech clubs offer a great introduction to the industry scene - a means to understand the opportunities and necessary skills.

Bioentrepreneur: Avoiding Capital Punishment

"Innovation - any new idea - by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience."

Warren Bennis, American leadership scholar