It was terribly civil of UCLA to come out and answer the questions that I raised in a blog last week. According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, it looks to me like it is a sound management structure and philosophy. I have great hopes that this model spreads throughout the United States. I’ve long argued that universities need to do a better job of nurturing the entire ecosystem of innovation and commercialization, not just allow an idea to be licensed:
Outside Board to Guide UCLA on Research Deals
The Non-Profit Will Help Find Funding, Commercial Applications for Its Research
Anthony Farina, director of research at the UCLA startup Librede Inc., at work on Tuesday.
Emily Berl for The Wall Street Journal
LOS ANGELES—The University of California campus here plans to establish a nonprofit board that is independent from the university, to help find funding and commercial applications for its research.
The board, expected to be unveiled Wednesday, may be replicated at other
University of California campuses. Such a model could lay the groundwork for a vast system of academic research commercialization, managed largely by people outside of academia.
Critics have taken issue with that prospect, arguing that placing decisions
about intellectual property in the hands of a private entity isn’t best for the public.
The announcement comes just days after the University of California system approved a $250 million venture-capital fund aimed at financing research-driven startups on its 10 campuses. UCLA officials said the new local endeavor will tee up potential targets for that investment.
The 10-member board will advise the school’s intellectual-property office on expediting licensing deals and industry-sponsored contracts for its research, UCLA officials said.
Known as Westwood Technology Transfer, the board will include executives, lawyers
and investors from biopharmaceuticals, engineering, technology and finance. Their goal will be to guide the school in identifying “promising research” for investors and companies interested in licensing deals, school officials said.
The concept was approved by the UC Board of Regents last year.
“Bringing in executives of this caliber and experience will help us achieve new heights for the university in terms of translating research for the benefit of society,” said Brendan Rauw, who leads UCLA’s Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research.
Mr. Rauw is expected to be elected as chief executive of the board, whose members won’t be compensated.
The panel was modeled after similar entities at the University of Wisconsin and Arizona State University.
As universities nationwide look for new ways to capitalize on academic research, critics have warned against putting too much of an emphasis on profit over discovery.
“The public interest is sometimes in rapid commercialization, sometimes in feeding research discoveries back into new research, and sometimes in putting inventions directly in the public domain for maximum collaborative development,” said Christopher Newfield, a professor of critical studies at UC Santa Barbara. “Not just in turning everything over to the highest or best-connected commercial bidder.”
Mr. Rauw said the driving force behind the new endeavor wasn’t primarily to make money, but to “support the research enterprise.” He noted that “rigorous” conflict-of-interest policies would be enforced among the board members and that no technologies could be directed to a specific company.
Bill Ouchi, a professor in UCLA’s business school, said the outside advisers will help UCLA make smarter deals and protect its innovations.”Professors are not experienced in negotiating with companies,” he said, “but companies are very experienced in negotiating with professors.”
For the past three years, UCLA has attracted about $1 billion annually in funding and grants for research from public and private sources.The school counts 700 active patents and a number of startup successes, including two cancer drug treatment companies: Aragon, which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson last year. and Seragon, which was acquired by Genentech this year.
A study the UC system conducted in 2012 found that Stanford University earns 9% annually in licensing income per $10 million spent on research; and MIT makes 5.3%. UC, however, only earned 2.45%. “Clearly, we had improvements to make,” Dr. Ouchi said, and it started with bringing in a “business perspective,” and changing some of the bureaucratic policies that were slowing down the process.
