BLG News Winter 2005
The Baylor Licensing Group (BLG) Congratulates the Recipients of the Biannual John (Jack) B. Carter, Jr. Family Technology Innovation Award. The “Jack Carter Family” award comes from a donation given by the Jack Carter, Jr. family to Baylor to create an award for technology development. The award is given every two years to Baylor faculty who have developed innovative technology that has been licensed to a company. Two awards are made, typically, one for a license to an existing company and one for a license to a start-up company. The awardees are selected by a committee from the licenses executed by BLG within the previous 5 years.This year’s awardees are:
Dr. Heggeness’ research efforts focus on discovering ways of alleviating back and neck pain in the patients he sees in the clinic. Patients that do not respond to non-invasive treatments such as heat, medication or exercise typically end up requiring surgery which is expensive and does not always result in improvement of the condition. Dr. Heggeness’ idea is to insert a very small probe into a region of the vertebra occupied by intraosseous nerves. The probe provides energy which ablates those nerves that are thought to transmit pain inside the bone. This treatment requires very little recovery time and does not damage the vertebra or surrounding tissue. The technology was licensed to DePuy Acromed, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson in November 2001. Large animal studies have been completed with favorable results.
Drs. Botas and Zoghbi have collaborated on determining the mechanisms involved in neurodegeneration with the goal of discovering targets for the prevention and treatment of these disorders. They have developed many animal models, both in Drosophila and the mouse for neurodegenerative diseases. These models have proven to display characteristics strikingly similar to various disorders such as Huntington Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Ataxia’s. Using these models they have identified genes and compounds that have an effect on the phenotype associated with the disease. This research has resulted in several invention disclosures including animal models and screening technologies that, as a group, were licensed to the start up company EnVivo Pharmaceuticals in October of 2002. BLG Licensing Successes: Did you know?
During this past fiscal year, BLG executed 52 license and option agreements with companies to commercialize Baylor technologies and our activities brought in over $7 million in income to Baylor. This is the second Newsletter since our name change to the “Baylor Licensing Group” or BLG. This change was made to more accurately reflect the main purpose and function of our office. Our mission is to license inventions developed by the Baylor faculty and staff to commercial companies. This mission is accomplished in part by reviewing invention disclosures, aiding in the execution of Confidentiality Agreements for discussions with companies, and if necessary, managing the patent prosecution. Below are examples of some of the licenses our office has recently executed. The licensed technologies reflect the diverse research activities that occur at Baylor, and vary from potential targets, to diagnostics, to antibodies and mouse models. BLG licenses a tumor sensitizing target to ICOS:
Baylor and ICOS Corporation entered into a non-exclusive license for checkpoint kinase (chk1) technologies which were developed in the laboratory of Stephen J. Elledge, Ph.D. in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Cell cycle checkpoints are regulatory pathways that control the order and timing of cell cycle transitions, and ensure that critical events such as DNA replication and chromosome segregation are completed with high fidelity. ICOS is interested in these pathways and is assessing compounds for their ability to selectively increase the sensitivity of tumors versus normal tissue to radiation or chemotherapeutic agents, thereby enhancing the success and minimizing the toxic effects of conventional treatments for many different types of tumors. Baylor holds several patents on the chk1 technology. BLG collaborates with another academic to license viral diagnostics:
Baylor recently executed a co-exclusive license with the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) for rights to Baylor patents related to monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies to Norwalk virus and other noroviruses. This invention was developed in the laboratory of Mary Estes, Ph.D. in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology. Noroviruses are often transmitted in contaminated food, via person-to-person contact and have been responsible for outbreaks of severe gastroenteritis in schools, nursing homes, and on cruise ships. The license from Baylor to CCHMC allowed CCHMC to “bundle” Baylor’s invention with norovirus protein and antibody reagents developed at CCHMC and license the entire package to Meridian Bioscience, Inc. Meridian markets diagnostic reagents and kits for a variety of infectious diseases. Baylor and CCHMC will share in the revenue from Meridian’s sales of norovirus diagnostic kits. The agreement between Baylor and CCHMC provides an example of how academic institutions can work together to commercialize similar technologies developed at their institutions. BLG licenses antibodies to be made available to researchers:
Baylor recently executed a semi-exclusive license (one of only three licenses for this technology) with Chemicon, Inc. a research reagent company, for rights to sell four antibodies. They included rabbit anti-mouse antisera against pancreatic antigens PDX-1, and P DX-1b, and endocrine and tumor antigens SSTR-2 and SSTR-5, developed by Xiaoping Wang, Ph.D. and F. Charles Brunicardi, M.D. in the Department of Surgery. Chemicon paid an upfront license fee and will pay a percentage of royalties on the net sales of the antisera. These antibodies are not patented. Companies, such as Chemicon, are interested in selling these types of reagents due to anticipated interest in the research community. BLG licenses an LRP5 Knockout mouse to Novartis for research use:
Baylor recently executed a non-exclusive license with Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research, to provide a mouse model for internal research and development purposes only. The mouse model is a knockout of the LRP5 gene, which is a member of the LDL receptor family. The knockout yields a phenotype that mimics human osteoporosis-pseudoglioma syndrome caused by lesions in LRP5. The mouse model was developed by Lawrence Chan, M.D., Masaki Kato, M.D., Ph.D. and Gerard Karsenty, M.D., Ph.D. in the Departments of Medicine and Molecular and Human Genetics. Novartis paid an upfront license fee and will pay an annual maintenance fee on each anniversary of the agreement. The mouse model like most of our models, is not patented. Distribution of Net Income from our Licensing Activities
Income from BLG licensing activities is distributed according to the Baylor Policy on Patents and Other Intellectual Property, found on our website.
| Income from license: | 100% |
| BLG Fee: | 15% |
| Patent costs, if any: | Recovered if not directly reimbursed by Licensee. |
| Income from license: | 100% |
| NET INCOME*: | |
| Contributors: | 50% Distributed as per the percentages listed on the disclosure form |
| Department: | 25% One or more departments represented by the Contributors |
| BCM General Fund: | 25% |
| *If the invention was partly or fully funded by a non-profit foundation, then Net Income may be further reduced depending on the foundation’s IP policy at the time the PI accepted the grant. | |