UMass CVIP Newsletter

Turning World Class Research into Innovative Products

  May 2014 

 

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Welcome
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This newsletter from the Office of Commerical Venture and Intellectual Property at the President's Office of the University of Massachusetts is to keep you informed of the latest technology activities and successes on all five campuses.
Active Third Quarter for Disclosures, Patent Activity and Licensing
The University had a good quarter in terms of faculty disclosures, patenting activity and licensing (6 licenses). Licensing income was also strong at $12.3M.
  
The primary source of licensing income for the quarter was $9.5M from Medimmune and $1.3M from CSL-Behring for technology developed at Mass Biologics. In addition, the Medical School received $377K from Voyager Therapeutics, a new startup, and $50K from both Alnylam and Celgene/Signal. UMass Lowell received an $84K payment from Metabolix, and Amherst received $50K from Life Technology and $30K from ACT. The remaining income was from multiple licensees at Amherst, Lowell and Worcester.
  
For the quarter, Amherst executed 1 exclusive and 4 non-exclusive licenses, and Worcester executed 1 exclusive license. No licenses were completed from the other 3 campuses.
  
Licensing Activities  
UMass Amherst completed 1 exclusive license, the UMass start-up company Felsuma of the "geckskin technology" developed by Professors Crosby and Irschick and 4 non-exclusive licenses including 2 for the CIDSM (Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets) database and 2 for CASA (Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere) developed software were executed.
  
UMass Worcester completed a license to the recently formed start-up Voyager Therapeutics (described below).
  
Options were completed by both UMass Amherst to Amarantus Bioscience for MANF (Mesencephalic Astrocyte-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) technology (protein effects cell proliferation) developed by Professor Schwartz and by UMass Worcester to SR Bio for technology affecting sleep apnea developed by Professor Paydarfar.
  
Startup Activity-Continued Strong Start-up Activity at UMass
Licenses were granted to 2 start-ups this quarter bringing the annual total to date to 6 start-ups - the highest for the University in a fiscal year.
  

Amherst completed an exclusive license to Felsuma to develop geckskinGeckskin technology which was described in previous newsletters. The novel technology can replace Velcro and also has a range of other products as an adhesive. The company has raised $1.2M to date which includes an investment by the University from the UMass Equity Fund. Additional funding is being sought.
  
A second start-up, Voyager Therapeutics (click here for website), received a license for RNA technology developed by Professors Zamore, Guo, Aronin and others. Voyager was formed to develop life-changing gene therapies for fatal and debilitating diseases of the central nervous system. Third Rock Ventures invested $45M in its series A round.
 
UMass Investment Fund Activity
The University approved this quarter a $200K investment in the start-up Felsuma to be invested as part of the $2M seed round. To date UMass has invested $100K along with angel investors for a total of $1.2M to Felsuma. Felsuma is an Amherst start-up based on "Geckskin", a super-adhesive technology invented by Professors Al Crosby and Duncan Irschick. The company was formed last year with Rana Gupta, an experienced entrepreneur, as its founding CEO.
  
A second investment of $200K was approved by the Treasurer and her
Dr. Babs Soller
advisory committee for Reflectance Medical, following the unanimous recommendation of the UMass Technologies Advisory Committee formed by Bill Rosenberg. However, since the investment approval, Reflectance has not yet received its funding from a US Army grant. As a result the company is out of funds and is exploring other avenues. The University investment has been put on hold until the company has stabilized its position. At such time a new recommendation will be made to the Treasurer for approval. Reflectance Medical was formed by former UMass Worcester professor Babs Soller and has developed a product for non-invasive monitoring in critical care situations.
  
Bill Rosenberg and Abi Barrow have met several times with Steve Rogers,
Steve Rogers
CEO of Qteros, to determine whether to pursue consideration of a UMass investment. Qteros is a "re-start" of an Amherst spinout based on bacterial conversion of biomass to ethanol developed by Professor Susan Leschine. Additional discussion is still required to determine whether this is an investment candidate to be recommended for a University investment.
  
Any campus which has an investment opportunity in a start-up - even at an early stage- should contact Bill Rosenberg.
UMass Entrepreneurship Activity

 

Bill Rosenberg and Abi Barrow continue effort on an initiative to raise the level of entrepreneurship at UMass, called the UMass "Entrepreneurship Commons." It is an approach to create better awareness of and connectivity to the many separate campus activities that contribute to entrepreneurship across all campuses (e.g., educational programs, mentoring, funding). A draft presentation has been created using comments received from the campuses. A revised draft is currently being prepared to reflect these comments.

 

At his request, a meeting was held recently with Secretary for Economic Development Bialecki and UMass system-wide representatives to inform him of the University's efforts to promote entrepreneurship and to explore the potential of a legislative initiative to further support university-based entrepreneurship across the Commonwealth. Our understanding was that the Secretary was impressed with the programs and centers on the campuses. Secretary Bialecki and President Caret have agreed to speak at the upcoming 1-day retreat on entrepreneurship Abi and Bill are organizing with a working group consisting of representatives of all campuses. The retreat will be held on June 16 in Boston. We are expecting 50-60 UMass attendees who are involved in a range of program supporting entrepreneurship.

 

Rosenberg and Barrow are continuing work with the Office of Technology Management and the Center for Clinical and Translational Science at the Medical School on a 3-part seminar series on IP and commercialization "basics." Two successful seminars have been held.

Mass Technology Transfer Center (MTTC) Programming, Grant Awards and Policy Activities 
  
MTTC "Catalyst Awards"  
Working with the MassCEC, the MTTC is in the middle of the review process for the second round of Catalyst Awards for this fiscal year. Up to five new awards of $40,000 each will be awarded to researchers and very early stage companies to prove their clean energy technologies. Eleven finalists have been selected to present to a group of external reviewers on June 4th. UMass faculty from Amherst, Dartmouth and Lowell have successfully competed for these awards in the past.
  
FD Sonics - a prior winner of Catalyst Award- recently announced that they had raised over $10M to continue the development of their technology. The Catalyst Award funded proof of concept work on the technology at Western New England University to remove algae grown for biofuel from water. The new funding is primarily to support the development of the same technology for biomanufacturing processes.
  
Mentoring Support 
The MTTC has continued to work with UMass Amherst Mentors and Ventures Program (MVP) on an event that showcased four early stage start-ups to a group of alumni mentors. The program, held at the UMass Club, attracted a strong group of mentors who met with each company and provided them strategic advice. 

 

Platforms
The MTTC organized a Platform meeting for Professor Jeff Blanchard and post-doc Amy Biddle from UMass Amherst.
Their startup is Natural Microbials. They have discovered specific probiotics which may be used as a food additive for horses to reduce the incidence of colic - a frequently fatal condition for horses. Through the Platform coaches, the co-inventors who have recently completed an NSF iCorp award were coached on their presentation and a dozen industry experts were invited to hear the pitch and give their feedback.
  
  
Seminars at UMass Medical School
The MTTC and CVIP in collaboration with UMass Med's OTM and the CCTS has held two seminars at the Medical School in the last quarter. Approximately 50 people attended each seminar. The seminar focused on the basics of intellectual property and what to expect from your technology transfer office once you have disclosed a new technology. This is the second time that the MTTC and CVIP have collaborated with UMass Medical School to develop and deliver this type of program.

 

"Proof of Concept" Legislation 
The MTTC and the President's Office continue to lobby for the passage of a bill to provide funding to MTTC to award "proof of concept" grants and provide various forms of technical assistance to faculty to help them move their discoveries closer to commercialization. Read here. The bill requests multi-year funding of $8M with a minimum of half reserved for UMass. It is hoped that the legislation be included in a "jobs" bill that is currently being developed.
  
Conferences and Events
The MTTC held the 10th Annual Early Stage Life Sciences Conference at Merck's research facility in Boston on April 10th. 14 companies presented at the meeting and an additional 7 inventors presented posters. Many of the attendees noted that the quality of all of the presenters this year was exceptionally high. Charles Kiefer, Director, Clinical Assay Research at UMMS presented his invention - a lateral flow diagnostic that would quickly (within a few minutes) provide a semi-quantitative measure of internal acute tissue damage from a drop of blood.
 
The 6th Mass Life Sciences Innovation Day will be held at the Harvard Club in Boston on June 3. The MTTC is currently recruiting UMass spin-off companies and technologies to participate in the poster session. Mark Levin from Third Rock will be the opening plenary speaker and will focus on the founding of Voyager which has licensed technology from UMass Medical School.
Thank you to the UMass CVIP staff on each campus as well as Abi Barrow (Director, MTTC), and Michele Bernier (Grant Manager) from the President's Office. If you have any suggestions for a newsletter topic or questions regarding the articles mentioned above, please contact Michele Bernier at mbernier@umassp.edu or me at wrosenberg@umassp.edu.

Sincerely,
 
William Rosenberg

Commercial Ventures & Intellectual Property