After the 2021 public biotech market shakeup, life science investment dollars may be shifting. The past few years have seen a crowded investment market, with both veteran life science investors and new opportunistic investors getting in on the groundswell, especially in the case of IPOs.

In 2021, many of these transient investors cleared out when the bottom finally dropped out. While this investor exodus has been tough for pre-clinical and Phase I startups hoping to go public, steadfast VCs and other biotech investors have the flexibility and wherewithal to weather the froth coming of the IPO market . Comparing 1Q22 to a year earlier is revealing: only nine came in the first three months of 2022 versus 33 IPOs in 1Q21.

So, how will investors wield this new-found freedom? Some signs point to early-stage opportunities as a good destination for their dollars.

Demand for biotech IPOs still weak

One factor pushing investors away from later stage biotech is compressed exit opportunity – either through acquisition or IPO. The fervor for biotech investment carried over from 2020 drove the overvaluation of biotechs going public at all technology stages, leading to a poor post-IPO performance from 2021’s public crop. This trend has shaken confidence in the ability of biotech IPOs to yield returns and has caused all except dyed-in-the wool biotech VC investors and strategics to hang back. While there

is a continued supply of biotechs at the age and stage to go public (approximately 75 companies have SEC registrations ready), there is simply not enough demand for those IPOs currently.

While companies considering an IPO do not all necessarily boast technologies in advanced clinical trials, there is certainly a correlation between technology maturity and propensity for IPO. As a result, those in late-stage clinical work with technologies closer to market may feel the pressure of a slumped IPO market more acutely than less mature firms, primarily because of their cost structure.

With the XBI still leveling out at about half its highwater mark of a year ago, investor confidence in the biotech market will take time to recover. So, it may be a while before capital flows back into public biotech markets to enable the consistent exit environment of last year.

Though the valuations won’t be as lofty as in 3Q21 without the “crossover” or pre-IPO investors, late-stage biotechs can nonetheless seek financing from seasoned VCs, eager to put their money into more reasonably priced deals, and fund the significant

C-rounds needed to support these larger, more mature biotech firms.

Late-stage acquisitions few and far between

The other exit path for late stage biotechs, acquisition by big biopharma, is showing very little activity currently. At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January 2022, big pharma such as BMS, Novartis, Pfizer, and Roche indicated their preference for smaller, ‘bolt-on’ deals with small- to mid-size companies rather than large, capital-intensive M&A deals. Smaller deals allow big biopharma to leverage the target’s unique expertise, whereas value added from large, late-stage biotech acquisitions may be not as substantial because of acquirer overlap with the target’s skills.

Moreover, the hawkish tone of the FTC since 2021 has indicated that the coming years could see increased scrutiny on large deals. While the Pfizer completed the acquisition of Arena Pharmaceuticals,  the waters of large-scale acquisitions remain untested. These factors may make the ‘exit via merger’ route harder to come by for a large share of later stage companies..

Could VCs and strategic investors shift focus upstream to earlier-stage biotech?

Given biopharma’s currently small appetite for late-stage acquisitions, the focus on earlier-stage biotech is coming from both strategic investors and life science VCs. And that’s not a bad thing, as it will avoid putting more pressure on the large number of biotechs that went public in 2021 whose shares trade below their IPO price. An investor shift toward earlier-stage, private-market opportunities where those companies remain private longer will give public biotech markets time to recover. Meanwhile, companies spending time to create real, milestone-based value, will be in a position for an exit either via industry acquisition or through a solid, facts-based IPO story.

Moreover, looking backwards to early-stage companies could help investors find more potent contenders to face the now-crowded startup scene. The IPO enthusiasm of 2021 weakened the winnowing process for biotechs and led to an environment with too many companies, with similar, poorly differentiated technologies. Backtracking to earlier stage opportunities could help investors find technologies with the potential to leapfrog the current generation rather than ones providing only incremental improvements.

Rising interest rates could interfere

While a new focus on earlier stage companies seems to be a natural shift, factors like current events and high inflation, which add uncertainty to the market, may intercede. Investors expect the Fed to push interest up rates several times over the coming months to fight inflation, projecting interest rates six more times over the year. These higher interest rates work against longer term, riskier investments while pushing investors into safer markets. However, the magnitude of this effect on current markets is unclear as of yet.

Takeaways: Early stage biotechs could be the winners of 2022

Despite the difficulties of 2021, life science investors are fueled up and ready for

another round. Already in the first quarter of 2022, VC funding reached almost $8 billion, which is higher than all of the last three quarters of 2021. Many of these funds are explicitly set for new venture creation or early stage technologies, such as Atlas Venture’s recent $450 fund geared toward generating new biotechs from existing and new creators. Other players are also making their plays in the early-stage biotech market – including corporate VC such as Fujifilm, which has set up a small new fund of $60 million explicitly for early-stage companies and in modalities like cell therapy.

With the intensity of the current market downturn, factors pushing investors towards earlier stage companies are also strong. Namely, the lack of exit opportunities for later stage companies, either by IPO or acquisition, could cause capital to shuttle rapidly up pipeline. The recently churned market may yield exciting opportunities to a fresh generation of early-stage tech in 2022.

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Last month saw the publication of WIPO’s new bi-annual IP report, entitled “The Direction of Innovation”. The report is packed with insights, bringing a combination of powerful observations that really hit home backed by data-driven analysis that look deeply into how and why innovation flows.

A key perspective of the report points to the split of economic benefits which go to society (social benefit) vs. returns to private sector investment (private benefit). Spoiler warning: a clear example is the lightning-paced work occurring from the time Chinese scientists sequenced and released the mapping of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in January 2020, to Covid-19 public vaccinations – barely a year later. While many may point to big pharma’s eye-popping profits, the WIPO report shows that the quantifiable portion of the economic benefits to society are roughly 900x those of the revenue earned by the private sector!

The best laid plans… how global crises affect innovation ecosystem participants

On 7 April 2022, WIPO’s IP and Innovation Ecosystems Sector (IES), hosted a short conference to present summary findings of the report, accompanied by a lively panel discussion. Marco Alemán, head of WIPO’s IES, introduced the key concept of how dependent major innovation outcomes are on the influence of each participant in the ecosystem: nations, institutional scientific and engineering research, and private sector investment. However, major events beyond the control of public policy makers shape outcomes, usually via crises, such as war, pandemic and natural disaster. Those crises have enormous impact on research and innovation outcomes. Look at how penicillin development rose in direct response to battlefield infections.

Reflecting academia, industry & government, panel’s views on setting of the direction of innovation

In introductory remarks and presentation of the panelists, Dr. Carsten Fink, head of the IES Department of Economics and Data Analysis, provided illustrations of the change in pace and focus of innovation since the industrial age. As society made its lunge forward in technology in the 20^th century, it did so in recognizable big waves, i.e., engine/transport > pharma > ICT > digitalization, today.

And some funny things happened on the way to the IP forum. A most recent example is digital-related innovation: it has grown 172% faster than all patents over preceding five years.

Lively panel discussion

Introducing themselves and their work, each panelist drove home the reality of innovation acceleration. The panelists included Victor Aguilar, Procter & Gamble’s Chief R&D and Innovation Officer, Dr. Xiaolan Fu, Professor and Founding Director of Oxford University’s Technology & Management Centre for Development, David Kappos, Partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and former Director of the USPTO, and Caroline Ylitalo, Division Scientist at 3M. Here a few items that resonated with me:

Views from academia, industry and public sector

• Dr. Fu highlighted the case of under-the-radar innovation taking place in developing economies, and how digitalization is changing adoption patterns into and out of LDCs. But it’s not only permeability and diffusion that are changing, it’s also about the impact on labor and the growth in services from disembodying know-how and delivering expertise digitally.
• From the corporate side, 3M’s Caroline Ylitalo spoke of major challenges and trends we face as society. She highlighted the impact of crisis and the opportunities they may arise from it, shown in the surge in demand for N95 masks, and visible also in the utility gains from the digital world’s access to masses of technical information, along with the advent of ideation tools and collaboration platforms.
• P&G’s Victor Aguilar drove home the point of digitalization’s impact for P&G’s goal of improving life, ranging from AI’s contribution to retailing optimization, to its role in designing smart toothbrushes, and to the increasing importance of identifying relevant innovation arising outside P&G.
• Cravath’s David Kappos highlighted how dependent the realization of huge economic output and the delivery of the benefit to society are on making sure ecosystems’ participants do what they do best (per their respective missions)
  • Private sector develops suitable commercially defensible applications,
  • Inventors and their institutions need access to the tools – including collaborative networks – to help convert their innovative insights into invention disclosure and products
  • Governments alone needs to provide money and structure of well-reasoned incentives to grow and make accessible the bounty of fundamental research;the private sector’s need to provide returns to owners makes investment in basic research prohibitive.

Public and private motivations: even if not aligned, good neighbors enable a productive existence

The role of government policy and its ability to create a fertile bed of fundamental research is a topic receiving significant attention. And well it should. Thoughtful and economically supportive public policy for fundamental research can produce huge big social benefits. Once they’re convinced of the business potential prospects, the private sector gets busy converting discoveries from a trove of basic research into commercialized inventions. That’s not all, as “de-risked” innovations come into focus, industry dramatically increases its share of development expense.

Beginning in the 1950s, the space race led to the creation of NASA in the US and its enormous role in driving aerospace research and creating in the process a rich network of public-private collaboration. Sponsored research was involved of course, but government purchases of innovation-based products from the private sector – there was no other buyer – were also a critical factor in clearing a path to commercialization of those space-age inventions.

Enormous productivity flowed from that inventive output which created social benefits many times those of the gains for the private sector in a broad array of fields, such as energy storage, photovoltaics and nuclear energy.

The grand challenges facing us and the need to pay attention to the direction of innovation

As the world faces climate change, ongoing food insecurity, the need for higher levels of education and the preservation of privacy rights, to name some big ones, government can play an important role. While the public sector can’t do a great job of predicting private sector winners, it can do things to even out the playing field through incentives, such as by purchasing from innovative smaller firms willing to take the risk of developing emerging technology.

There is so much inside this report, I am moved to invoke lyrics from OMC’s 1995 hit single, How Bizarre, but with a twist: you don’t need to “buy the rights”, WIPO grants you a free readership license, so download their great Intellectual Property Report 2022: The Direction of Innovation – and enjoy its valuable insights.

BTW, keep an eye out for a future SeedSprint blogpost where we’ll get more into the weeds on a topic WIPO cares a lot about: increasing the efficiency of the critical interplay between innovation-seeking large enterprise on one side, and technology providers on the other, i.e., institutional intermediaries such as TTOs, along with risk-taking micro and SMEs (MSMEs) in the private sector.

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Over the last two decades, the toxicity of hundreds of pesticides in the United States doubled for pollinators and other species that contribute to ecological balance. Pesticides are meant to protect crops from harmful pests. However, they can end up doing more harm than good.

As environmental sustainability becomes an increasingly important issue, more and more companies aim to offer healthier and more sustainable solutions. 

Paving the way to safer crop protection strategies

Part of the 500 FoodTech companies to watch by Forward Fooding, ClearLeaf is a Costa Rica-based startup. The company develops sustainable crop protection strategies. Through these strategies, ClearLeaf aims to protect the environment and optimize farmers’ profits.

As a nation, Costa Rica is a global leader in sustainability. More recently, the country has experienced rapid growth in technology innovation, especially in the life sciences.

ClearLeaf’s mission is to treat plants as carefully as we would with our skin. It’s a valuable approach since traditionally, pest control can lead to a number of long-term problems. For example, pest control methods can weaken soil, cause environmental destruction, and cause health problems for workers and consumers.

ClearLeaf’s solution to these problems is a line of non-toxic contact-action liquid emulsions that enhance plant growth while simultaneously managing pests.

Emerging into the Global Market

Recently, ClearLeaf’s flagship GotaBlanca® product obtained a certificate of conformity to the Europe Union Organic Standard. At the same time, the company raised a $500,000 Seed Round. Now, ClearLeaf is beginning to raise a Seed Plus Round of $2.5 million.

“We are also in the process of moving our headquarters into the US to facilitate growth into that market, better also for IP protection and lastly, be closer to our new investors and strategic partners,” says Nestor Zuniga, ClearLeaf’s Managing Director.

In other news, the company secured a broad distribution agreement with one of the largest agrochemicals distributors in Costa Rica and Central America.

“We are proud to open this new chapter for ClearLeaf. We already have interested investors for this Seed Plus Round and are open to hearing from more, to go forward with the development of our Company and our vision for safe and sustainable agriculture,” says Zuniga.

Growth for Startups

As startups like ClearLeaf emerge into the market, they often face new challenges. Some of the most common challenges can include scaling production capabilities, gaining access to new markets, and securing funding to fuel continued growth.

The SeedSprint platform puts emerging technology startups, technology commercialization staff, and industry tech scouts from all over the world directly in touch.

New to our blog? Stay tuned for more news on emerging technologies and open innovation. To keep up with the latest, sign up for our newsletter!

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At the 2021 AUTM Annual Meeting last month, we attended a session called “Flex Your Soft Power: Impact From Social Science.” The panel featured three speakers: Professor Julia Black, Chair of ASPECT and Strategic Director of Innovation at London School of Economics and Social Science; Melanie Knetsch from the Social and Economic Research Council; and Cristoph Groller, Managing Director of Grogen and Koller.

During the talk, the speakers explored the importance of Social Science research, some of the difficulties in commercialization, and introduced emerging groups that are bridging Social Science research and businesses. 

What is ASPECT?

ASPECT is a growing network of organizations working to encourage collaboration between academics and businesses and apply Social Science research to private and social enterprises. The organization seeks to encourage research collaboration and build partnerships between academia and industry. Currently based in the UK, ASPECT has many notable members including the University of Oxford and the University of Bristol. ASPECT is rapidly expanding its activities and funding to make Social Science research more accessible. Global expansion is next on the agenda.

Why Social Science Research is Just as Important as STEM

Although ASPECT has taken on some similar projects as STEM research groups do, there are some important distinctions. There is a common misconception that Social Science is the light version of STEM. In reality, Social Science research tends to be smaller, and market competition is greater. However, this is just the start of a long list describing the difficulties of having Social Science research acknowledged compared to STEM. 

This is where ASPECT steps in. Social Science researchers can use ASPECT as a tool to overcome hurdles in getting their work noticed. ASPECT pools resources and experiences. The effect enables members to benefit from scale and network effects. 

Social Science and business engagement: the UK context

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is one of the nine councils that make up the UK Research and Innovation body. ESRC aims to unlock the potential for collaboration between Social Science and business. 

Through conversations with the ESRC community, Melanie Knetsch noticed some challenges. For example, is it ethical for Social Science to help businesses profit? What is the added value that Social Science can bring to businesses? How do we adapt tech transfer offices (TTOs), typically designed to be a “STEM point of entry,” to conversations that also suit Social Science research? 

Ms. Knetsch then started thinking about Social Science commercialization in terms of “business readiness levels.” She based the readiness levels on the business model, ethical considerations, adoption, and tools needed to implement the project. Considering these business readiness levels further enforced the importance of integrating Social Science into business to streamline innovation. 

Exploring “business readiness levels” for Social Science then brought Knetsch to the question of what added value the ESRC can provide as a funder. Currently, the ESRC has identified “bringing awareness of Social Science” as one of its areas for improvement. In pursuit of this goal, ESRC is working with university professionals and TTOs to broaden engagement with businesses, foster partnerships, and recognize strides in Social Science innovation through the Impact Prize program.

ESRC hopes to become a global leader in Social Science-business partnerships. In the end, they hope these endeavors can propel Social Science innovation to a new level. 

Unleashing the Impact Power of Social Science and Humanities

As a society, we have excelled at rapid innovation in the past hundreds of years. We have created new technologies and solved problems that we once only dreamed of. At the same time, rapid change often goes unchecked. The true impact of technology is hard to measure. Social Science has the potential to measure this impact.

There is a growing call to action for academics in Social Science, Humanities, and the Arts to demonstrate their societal impact. Many of them think positively about what they can do with their academic work outside of academic circles. For example, Social Science researchers in Germany recently developed methods for lessening the discrepancy between female startup founders (15% of total startups), and female students at higher education institutions (59% of the student body). 

At SeedSprint, supporting the diverse and international community of innovators as they take their research from the lab to the marketplace is at the heart of our mission. We are thankful for the opportunity to learn from organizations like ASPECT and the ESRC about how we can achieve diversity and inclusivity in innovation across sectors. 

The post From the 2021 AUTM Annual Meeting: Supporting Social Science Commercialization appeared first on seedsprint.

As part of the 2020 TechConnect Virtual Summit last month, we attended a session called “Working with Defense Primes.” We had the opportunity to hear from Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program leads at four of the five US-based defense prime contractors: Alf Carroll of Raytheon Technologies, Kevin McGrath of Northrop Grumman, Craig Owens of Lockheed Martin, and Paul Staszak of Boeing. 

If you aren’t familiar with the SBIR/STTR programs, they are competitive awards-based Research and Development (R&D) programs available to US-based small businesses. Through the programs, small businesses have the opportunity to develop and commercialize their technologies. 

The SBIR and STTR programs are coordinated by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and funded by one of eleven federal agencies. Some of these agencies include the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense (DoD). STTR differs from SBIR in that it involves collaborations between small businesses and US-based nonprofit research institutions. The DoD plays a critical role in the programs. In fact, the agency makes up over 40% of the SBIR/STTR budget. 

The benefits of startup-defense prime collaboration

So why work with a defense prime contractor? Small businesses receive all sorts of benefits from partnering with a prime. Some of these benefits include access to subject matter expertise and resources, roadmaps towards commercialization, resources for IP concerns, funding strategy guidance, and support during proposals. 

The collaboration benefits the primes too. Through the partnership, primes build long-term, strategic relationships with small businesses. Additionally, the partnership helps primes to deliver innovative solutions and advanced technologies to their customers. The primes often align innovative small businesses and their technologies to their innovation priorities. This alignment results in the development of more advanced technology that benefits both parties. 

How small businesses can initiate a collaboration with primes

So how does a small business get started on collaborating with the primes? In order to apply for SBIR/STTR funding through the DoD, a small business must meet the qualifications explained here. Most of the primes send out a topic interest list that can give hopefuls an indication of whether their emerging technology is of interest. If your technology is not listed, a small business can usually reach out to each prime to be added. If your technology aligns with one of the primes’ interests, you can fill out an SBIR/STTR form for that prime and email it to their SBIR/STTR department. 

Tips for Successful Collaboration

What is the best way to engage with the defense prime contractors? In the session, the speakers had some important advice for small businesses beginning the process:

1. Be flexible and able to pivot. The primes often will have ideas about how to adjust your technology to fit specific needs.
2. Be persistent about contact. Furthermore, understand where your contact is within these big companies. It is important to find the right person who can advocate for you.
3. Don’t be vague. Come prepared and be concise about where and how your technology will fit in at the prime with whom you are speaking.

We hope we helped to de-mystify the process of working with the US-based defense prime contractors. We wish you luck in advancing your technology through this process!

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The year 2020 has made many commercialization professionals re-evaluate how they communicate and collaborate, and placed new demands on making online methods and forums count. From ensuring better Zoom meetings to developing an entirely new virtual marketing strategy, understanding various online tools and platforms can be daunting.

Tech transfer at universities and other research institutions has been adapting to the rapidly-changing digital ecosystem. But one thing that hasn’t shifted is the need to get important research and technology seen and into the market. 

At SeedSprint, we specialize in making online connections and collaboration between technology providers and corporate research sponsors, licensees, collaboration partners, and investors as simple and straightforward as possible. And our platform is free of charge for TTOs, research departments, and startups. 

So how can you use SeedSprint to your TTO’s advantage?

Upload to SeedSprint and update easily from your TTO’s database

Whether you use a proprietary system, an Excel spreadsheet, your own relational database, or a comprehensive IP management system, our goal is to make it easy for our members to upload and update technology summaries. That way, you can get them in front of potential industry partners – easily and efficiently.

We have an API that can be mapped to the fields of your relational database. And if you use a system such as Inteum’s Technology Publisher, we’ll do the mapping for you either into our API or using your RSS data feed. Both methods are easy and can be implemented in about a day! 

SeedSprint integrates easily with Inteum, helping your office consolidate and manage your IP and marketing strategy. Once uploaded, your NCSs will automatically update along with changes to Inteum’s Technology Publisher.

Learn more about how to create and manage profiles on SeedSprint.

SeedSprint’s industry database helps you connect with new partners

Once your technologies are uploaded, search SeedSprint’s database of corporate profiles to find commercialization partners suited to your technology. Message and send your technology profiles to them to get your technology seen without leaving your desk. You can search by firm name or technical terms. Once you’ve found some good matches, use keywords to direct the message and profile to the right person on the corporate side.

Learn more about how to message prospective industry partners on SeedSprint

Put your whole ecosystem to work: include startup and lab profiles to widen your net

If you think about it, industry is also looking for new partners. One of the best ways to demonstrate why your institution is a good fit is to show how your research and your startups bookend your IP portfolio and make it shine.

You can invite PIs to profile their labs and projects, and invite your spin-outs and startup licensees to profile themselves. Your institution is hyperlinked to any profile affiliated with you, which raises the visibility of your institution’s ecosystem.

Ready to put SeedSprint to work for your institution’s ecosystem? You can learn more here or check out our comprehensive User Manual for TTOs. Happy seedsprint-ing!

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VIC Technology Venture Development is an investor group focused on creating new companies based on life science and emerging technology innovation, sourced directly from universities, institutes, and national labs around the world.

Feature Article: VIC Portfolio Companies and Pipeline Technologies with Pandemic Impact

Our current daily activities bear little resemblance to the routines as of as recently as a month ago. Covid-19 has had an obvious and significant impact on the American people. For those suffering from chronic conditions such as dementia, diabetes, heart, and respiratory disease, the health impact during traumatic periods such as this is magnified. Read the full article on the VIC blog >>

SUBSCRIBE TO VIC’s BLOG

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The NIH recently added close to 2,000 NIH technologies to seedsprint’s platform using an API that enables automated posting and updating. Those technologies come from a couple dozen plus of the institutes and centers (including the CDC) that make up the NIH.

We recently caught up with Ajoy Prabhu, Head of Tech Transfer Marketing for NIH, to find out how things work there and what kinds of challenges he and his team are working on.

seedsprint: Ajoy, how do you and your licensing officers manage the marketing for so many institutes and centers?
Ajoy: A few years ago, the NIH began operating tech transfer with a dual-function outreach process.

seedsprint: What does that mean and how does it work?
Ajoy: In [2016] we de-centralized the marketing for inventions from our 27 member institutes and centers, with each institute becoming responsible for marketing their own technologies on an individual basis—we refer to these as “case-by-case technology marketing.” Licensing managers of the respective institutes and centers work with PIs and other research personnel to execute marketing strategies for a specific patent family to potential licensees. Secondly, we at the central Office of Technology Transfer do market research for the various institutes and help them market closely-related technologies as a bundle.

seedsprint: So what does that mean for your office centrally?
Ajoy: Since our de-centralization, we’ve shifted our efforts to deliver three core services:

• market analysis and guidance,
• transaction support and
• marketing of technology bundles or clusters, often covering more than one institute.

In the first two cases, we provide market analytics and assessment to all offices via shared databases, internal newsletter-type communications, along with one-on-one consultations with licensing and research personnel from our member institutes and centers.

Transaction support can be pretty broad and ranges from helping with industry contacts and industry suggestions for potential licensees at the front-end to support on valuation and negotiation at the back-end.

The last piece—technology cluster marketing—relates to our business development directed to commercializing multiple, related technologies.

An example of this could be two or three patent families whose research might have cut across two or more institutes. For example, say a given biomarker and receptor pair have promising applications both in diagnostics and therapeutics. Furthermore, related IP includes composition-of-matter and process patents all of which related to that biomarker-receptor pair but involve three different NIH operating units.

To help find the highest and best value, you not only need an overview of what the individual portfolio components are and how they fit together, but you also need to be able to look at the global biopharma and diagnostics markets and access the right contacts.

The international thing might not seem like much of a problem because of how international things are on the research side and on the industry side for life science research tools, medical devices and therapeutics. Well, surprise: our scientists and researchers do come from all over and many are plugged in all over. However, the institutes and centers are not fundamentally marketing organizations—they are investigative teams and do an outstanding job at their research. The upshot is that my colleagues in clinical development might have great access to a regulator in France or Thailand, but it doesn’t mean they know which business development person to contact to tee it up with a licensing manager at NIH covering the technology. That’s our job—to identify and execute marketing strategies for technology clusters.

seedsprint: Okay but other big state university systems—as in California or Texas, for example—they see a lot of related emerging technologies from different campuses—how’s that different from the NIH?
Ajoy: That’s a really good question. There are differences of substance and form—and each is significant.
Here is one example: In a US multi-campus university setting, where several PIs have come up with complementary IP, there’s impetus often to help it coalesce into a company to be spun out, with PIs being at least advisors with an equity interest, or even key executives in NewCo. Not an option for us—federally-funded PIs can’t do that for historical and practical reasons. But forgetting the merits, what does it mean for us?
It means we need to look for potential partners that appreciate the prospects in the cluster—and critically, have the financial wherewithal to close a deal.

seedsprint: Sounds like a call-out to industry rather than VC.
Ajoy: Often, that’s the case. And, as you know, strategic partners have a somewhat different set of concerns from those of financial investors – even for VC with LT life-science plays.

seedsprint: But you’re the NIH—if you have something that makes sense, you call somebody up and they say “let me see what time the next plane to DC is.”
Ajoy: Would be nice, but I don’t live in that world. Industry is inundated with information from inventors. We don’t get extra credibility credits for being the NIH. I have the same problem my colleagues have at academic institutions. It’s all about “fit”, but to show the fit, we need to get their attention. Once that happens, it’s simply a question of how fast we can move to deep-dive.

So, even with the 360 degree-view that we have here at NIH OTT, along with the cooperation we get from our PIs, we in marketing continually face the problem of getting the message out quickly and briefly and the need to expand and refresh our network continuously.

seedsprint: Ajoy—sound like your office has a pretty decent view of the landscape. What would you like to see from industry colleagues—across the aisle?
Ajoy: Oh that’s easy two things: (1) quick responses, and (2) if a “no” is looking probable, then “why”.

seedsprint: Thanks so much for your time.
Ajoy: Sure – thanks for your interest in what we’re doing.

The post An interview with Ajoy Prabhu, Head of Tech Transfer Marketing for NIH appeared first on seedsprint.

One of the greatest challenges that tech transfer office (TTO) and new ventures staff at universities face in commercializing university technology is cultivating business savvy among their researchers-turned-entrepreneurs. TTO staff dedicate significant time and resources to empowering and coaching researchers interested in commercialization to design product features that resonate with the needs of their prospective customers, price their product appropriately, gain the confidence to pitch their product to prospective business partners, and expand and nurture their networks. Investing in university researchers and empowering them to think like an entrepreneur in the tech transfer process is critical to commercialization success.

Our team attended the 2019 AUTM Annual Meeting in Austin, TX in February, where we learned from thought leaders in technology transfer on topics ranging from strategies for forging successful industry-university partnerships, to the benefits of creating funds for early-stage proof-of-concept development, to tactics for helping scientists develop essential business skills.  One of the sentiments echoed throughout many of the sessions was that though the barriers to commercialization are very real, there are methods and resources available for overcoming these barriers. So if you’re a TTO or new ventures professional looking to coach your researchers: what are some key steps you should take when helping your researchers transition from the bench to the business world?

1. Educate your researchers to think of their tech as a product tailored to their customers’ wants and needs.

More startups fail from lack of customers than from product failure. While the tech may provide a solution to the world’s problems, it won’t go anywhere if the market isn’t ready to receive it. Conducting customer interviews is critical to business success. By interviewing the people who will ultimately use the product, researchers can find out what their prospective customers actually want and need.

It’s important to be specific about what the product does and what problems it solves. Researchers should be able to answer these questions to identify product-market fit:

• What specific problems does the product solve?
• What is the specific product or service provided?
• Does the value proposition match what the customer needs?
• How will the future startup get, keep, and grow its customer base?

2.  Once they have developed a product people want, help your researchers develop the confidence they need to cultivate business relationships.

In research, ideas are kept close to the chest to protect intellectual property. This often leads to information silos, which are not conducive to the idea-sharing nature of commercialization. However, in the business world, networking is king.  Companies are looking to collaborate with universities and young startups—sometimes, all you have to do is start the conversation.

3. “Build it and they will come” doesn’t apply—a well-honed pitch is the ticket to forming the right partnerships. 

Prospective investors want specific, measurable outcomes and plans. Vague proposals willlose investors’ interest. Both the product and the pitch have to demonstrate exactly what results all parties can expect. Researchers must look beyond the scope of their immediate work to describe why their offer matters.

With our high-impact, industry-vetted profile templates, seedsprint makes it easy for both TTO professionals and researchers to put technology on display for the right people to see and securely communicate with potential partners. We know how important it is to keep intellectual property secure, which is why we provide encrypted data rooms and NDA negotiation tools.

Educating researchers to think about their tech as a business is critical to transforming it into a life-changing product or service that can make the world a better place. seedsprint is a great first step in helping your tech reach a wider audience and we’re happy to be part of the process!

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Technology transfer is a gateway to technological progress and innovation; however, even in the information age, there can be a disconnect between a technology’s value to society and its ability to reach those who can benefit from it most.  Enter seedsprint, the platform that makes it easier for emerging technologies to forge relationships with corporate partners. These relationships can help expedite product testing, in-kind resources, market entry assistance, and more.

Here at seedsprint, our goal is to understand pain points in the tech transfer process, and build software to make it easier. In 2018, we administered a survey to academic institutions, research labs, startups and others operating in the tech transfer space. The survey attracted over 100 responses primarily representing academic institutions in the United States or Canada. Here are some of our findings!

Licensing, new ventures, and more

• 91% of respondents said licensing was part of their professional responsibilities. We asked what activities were the most time-consuming, and here’s what we learned:

• 60% said negotiating licenses
• 40% said working on other legal agreements
• 36% said new university research-based ventures
• 35% said reviewing invention disclosures

Technology summaries

• 74% of respondents were personally responsible for creating and maintaining technology summaries and generally updated technology summaries on a quarterly or yearly basis. We wanted to know what was the most time-intensive aspect of creating these summaries:
  • 61% said collecting information for technology summaries
  • 42% said writing technology summaries for their website
• Almost 52% of respondents said their institution’s invention disclosure process does not yield all the information they need to create technology summaries for marketing purposes. Of these, most (69%) indicated that it is a moderate to heavy burden to gather this additional information.

Showcase your ecosystem & build better business relationships

Our survey results confirm that tech transfer professionals invest a great deal of time creating and updating technology summaries, identifying prospective licensees and industry partners, and maintaining these relationships. seedsprint streamlines networking and relationship management and helps you market your technologies more efficiently. With our easy-to-use API, you can upload your non-confidential technology summaries into industry-vetted profile templates in just a few clicks.  You can use our keyword search function to search for industry partners who are looking for the tech in your portfolio or message corporations you’re interested in partnering with directly.  Think you’ve made a match? Use our integrated workflow tools for due diligence to negotiate an NDA and share confidential information in our encrypted, auditable data room.

Networking: bridging the gap in the age of information

So you’ve uploaded your technologies to seedsprint and you’re already making new connections with prospective licensees and even have an NDA negotiation in the works.  What are the best ways to maintain these relationships?

• Keep your technology profiles up-to-date. Have a new technology in your portfolio that’s sure to change the world? Use our API to upload it to seedsprint and share it with prospective partners you think would be interested via our secure messaging feature.
• Stay engaged with prospective partners both online (via email LinkedIn, or seedsprint) and offline (via phone calls and in-person meetings). Starting the conversation may seem daunting but reaching out could lead to a deal or longstanding partnership. 
• Attend networking events with potential partners.This includes conferences, using local university alliances, and actively engaging with alumni communities to identify potential licensees.

See you on seedsprint!

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