BLG News Fall 2007
News from the Baylor Licensing Group
Volume 7, No. 1 Fall 2007
In this issue we present the top five revenue generating discoveries developed at Baylor College of Medicine from income received in fiscal years 2002-2007. We also recap our FY 2007 stats, welcome the new president of BCM Technologies, Inc. and say good-bye to the Cre-Lox patent.
Topics in this issue:
Top 5 revenue generating technologies, FY 2002-2007
FY2007 Stats
New BCM Technologies, Inc. President
Cre-Lox
Top 5 revenue generating technologies, FY 2002-2007
Below are listed the top 5 revenue generating technologies over the 5 year period, July 1, 2002 through June 30, 2007, and the total income for each technology during that time.
TECHNOLOGY (disclosure year) INCOME (thousands)
Mammalian cells used for protein production (1983) $9,891
Antimicrobial coating for medical devices (1991) $7,617
Multiplex genomic DNA amplification (1988) $5,342
Method of DNA typing using short tandem repeats (1989) $5,112
Oligo synthesis method (1986) $2,730
It is very rare for a license to generate over $1 million in annual revenue. The 2003 survey of the Association of University Technology Managers, the professional society for academic technology transfer, showed that only 1.4% of all revenue generating licenses had over $1 million in revenue in 2003. This statistic is drawn from nearly 200 academic and non-profit institutions. At the close of FY 2007, BLG was managing 160 revenue generating licenses and, of those, 3 licenses paid over $1 million in that fiscal year.
Each of these technologies has been licensed either to one company exclusively or to several companies. Each company licensee pays a royalty based on sales of products made with the use of the technologies. The licensee may have made other payments such as milestone or sublicensing fees. Each of these technologies is covered under one or more issued patents. However, one patent recently expired, which means this technology is no longer generating licensing revenue.
All of these technologies illustrate the point that the product development cycle in the biomedical industry is lengthy. It can take several years or even a decade or more to bring a technology to market and generate revenue. These technologies were disclosed a number of years ago; the oldest in 1986 and the most recent in 1991. It is rare that a technology is market ready at the time it is disclosed to our office, especially if it is a therapeutic or diagnostic. Often the company licensee invests considerable time and resources to develop a product out of what began as a preliminary discovery. A major factor contributing to the time between discovery and a revenue-generating product is the regulatory process. Some of these technologies are used to make products that require FDA clearance. For example, the cells used for protein production were used to produce a protein therapy that required FDA clearance for a biologic and the microbial coating is subject to 510K clearance.
The antimicrobial coating technology is a collection of work first disclosed to BLG in 1991. This research has continued for many years building a portfolio of related uses and variations. Since this is a general antimicrobial coating for medical devices, this technology and the portfolio of patents have been licensed to a number of companies in varying fields, i.e., for different medical device types. In addition, this technology was developed in collaboration with another academic institution. As in all jointly developed technologies, we share revenue received from licensees with that academic institution.
Note that these technologies are all platform technologies that can be applied to a variety of applications. Platform technologies can generate a large amount of revenue, but do not always do so. Novel compounds for treatment of common disease or high volume medical devices are typically the types of medical related technologies that generate the most revenue. However, in Baylor’s case, none of our top revenue-generating licenses are associated with a compound, which reflects Baylor’s limited small molecule discovery capabilities.
We wish to reinforce the point that the vast majority of licenses do not generate revenue streams similar to those depicted in this article. In fact, many diagnostic and therapeutic technologies that we license will not make it to market, for a variety of reasons. In addition, we license many research tools such as cell lines, mouse models and vectors which also do not generate revenue in the millions of dollars. Contact your Project Manager or blg@bcm.edu to discuss any technology that might be of commercial interest.
FY2007 Stats
We are pleased to report that in fiscal year 2007, BLG received 101 disclosures on new technologies, negotiated 59 option and license agreements and our gross revenue was $11,048,000.
New BCM Technologies, Inc. President
BLG would like to welcome Dr. Caroline Popper M.D., MPH, as the new President of BCM Technologies, Inc. Caroline has been working with BLG and the Baylor faculty to learn about research efforts conducted at Baylor. The focus of BCMT is to evaluate Baylor technologies for start up company potential and also to lend their expertise in other ways that might benefit Baylor as a whole. Read more about Caroline and her new role with BCMT.
Cre-Lox
We have good news for those of you using the Cre-Lox system in your research activities. The Cre-Lox patent to which Baylor had a research license has expired. This means that the obligation of using a special Material Transfer Agreement to transfer Cre-Lox materials to your academic colleagues and certain obligations of Baylor when licensing Cre-Lox materials to companies no longer applies. If you have any research tools generated with Cre-Lox you haven’t disclosed, please contact your Project Manager or blg@bcm.edu or send us a disclosure.
BLG Contact Information
For any questions related to inventions, patents and licenses, please contact BLG.
Baylor Licensing Group
One Baylor Plaza
BCMD-600D, MSC BCM210
Houston, TX 77030
Phone: 713-798-6821
E-Mail: blg@bcm.edu
Web site: http://www.bcm.edu/blg/