PerspectivesAre you interested in submitting a Perspective Article? Be sure to read The Science Advisory Board's Editorial Guides for Perspective Articles. Click here. Why University Technology Transfer is Failing, or, Why Have We Not Noticed The 800 lb Gorilla on Campus? by William Ward, Ph.D. A recent keynote presentation at a large biotech symposium got me thinking, once again, about university-based technology transfer in a broad sense. Historically, with the exceptions of Bell Labs, the Roche Institute, and a few similar organizations, most novel ideas in all fields of science have come from professors at universities. Long ago, it was the mission of research scientists at universities to freely share their discoveries and novel ideas with the rest of the world in the form of publicly accessible journal articles and other communications. Then, a number of decades ago, when scientific discoveries began to reap huge monetary benefits for corporations, university administrators began to realize that “there’s gold in them thar hills.” Why should university professors unearth the “gold” and then give it away to corporations freely, with no compensation to the professors and none to the university administration? University administrations concluded that there should be offices of technology transfer to enable new research discoveries to monetarily benefit the university--not just the corporations. None of this is new information. But, what is less obvious, and what is very seldom addressed, is that most universities (again with some clear exceptions) have historically set up and maintained poorly functioning “shell offices” of technology transfer--offices poorly funded, poorly staffed, and poorly equipped--offices unable to promote technology much beyond the US patent office (if that far). Perhaps the university presidents’ incentives have been to give their boards of governors and boards of trustees (usually comprised of disinterested corporate executives who meet monthly over lavish meals in a country club atmosphere to vote yes on all of the university president’s motions) the impression that their university actually DOES something about retaining, and financially benefiting from, intellectual property generated by its faculty members. Who knows? The fact is that at my institution, and I am quite sure at many other universities, offices of technology transfer are highly dysfunctional. Invention disclosures by professors go into a black box to be approved or rejected via some undisclosed process, apparently involving no peer review and no opportunity for the professor to defend his/her ideas (in my university, this is absolutely the case). If approved, the invention goes to a patent attorney chosen by the office of technology transfer with little opportunity for the professor to lend input. Yes, the universities pay the patent fees, and this is a significant contribution to the process. But, then, the issued patents are published in some seldom-read book, apparently so the director of tech transfer can “crow” about how his/her university stacks up against peer universities with respect to (1) annual invention disclosures, (2) annual patent applications, and (3) annual patents issued. Once the patent gets into that special book, the one that almost nobody reads, technology transfer, mediated by the tech transfer office, comes to an abrupt and permanent halt. From now on, it is all up to the professor to develop the technology--often with very limited resources. Professors can spend years, unsuccessfully, trying to find adequate funding to develop their now patented technology. Often federal grants from NSF or NIH will not permit federal funds to be used in development of patented technologies destined for commercialization. Not infrequently, just having research space funded, in part, by the NSF or NIH, disqualifies a university researcher from conducting, in that federally subsidized space, applied research with a commercial goal. Under the current system, the technology transfer office strongly encourages entrepreneurial professors to delay publishing research findings in peer-reviewed journals, but, instead, asks them to submit these findings as patent proposals. The central administration, seeming to place little or no value on the patent proposal route, strongly encourages immediate publication of research findings in peer-reviewed journals--a schizophrenic situation. But, then, if the professor is persuaded by those in the technology transfer office to go the patent route, the central administration of the university, seemingly out of communication with the technology transfer office, may then prevent directed research from being conducted on university grounds. Even worse, the central university administration then may punish, via exclusion from the promotion process, an entrepreneurial professor with lots of patent applications because he/she has published an “insufficient number” of research articles in peer-reviewed journals. In my case, for 25 years I have been repeatedly denied promotion at my university because, persuaded to go the route recommended by technology transfer, I have delayed publishing my work in peer-reviewed journals. I have been asked by technology transfer to hold back publication of my research findings while those findings slowly wind their way through the patent process. This process can take years. Not infrequently, as the years pass, others get wind of a professor’s patentable discoveries and, shall we say, steal the ideas by placing them in the public domain. They may even invalidate a patent application by unethically publishing the work of the inventor in peer-reviewed journals. I really know what I am saying here. This has happened to me several times. The various hurdles an entrepreneurial professor may experience can be so great that he/she just gives up the battle and hands over patentable ideas to the private, commercial sector for free. At my institution, most of my entrepreneurial colleagues have given up trying to commercialize their inventions. It’s too damn frustrating. Not infrequently, the frustration associated with the university’s schizophrenia (central administration says publish, tech transfer says hold off) is so great that entrepreneurial professors do, in fact, give away their ideas to corporations for free, directly bypassing the very mission of technology transfer. Some faculty entrepreneurs become so frustrated with this institutional schizophrenia that they cannot mention the term “technology transfer” without simultaneously uttering four letter words that would embarrass a life-long commercial fisherman. I know. I am a direct witness to this. In the faculty promotion process, the university administration places HUGE emphasis on overhead grants income (because they can instantly skim lots of money from the grants), less emphasis on peer-reviewed publications, much less emphasis on the generation of patentable intellectual property (because, by the time the IP has generated any money, those administrators will probably have left the university), and NO emphasis on highly effective teaching (who cares, machines and computers can do the work of professors at a much lower cost). Therefore, the most ambitious entrepreneurial professors, who happen to be excellent teachers, are able to gather none of the promotion “goodies” the university administration callously tabulates in the promotion process. So, having found no way to operate within the university system, these folks, in effect, bolt from the system by starting their own companies. But, again, the issue of who’s doing what under what roof comes up. Most professors can barely afford to keep the development of patented ideas moving forward under a university roof. Even fewer can afford to pay rent for off-campus laboratory space. What’s more, university-subsidized incubators often charge rent beyond the means of the professor’s budget. So, we sit in the proverbial “Catch 22.” We are not permitted to develop (or we cannot afford to develop) our inventions on campus, we cannot attract corporate investment unless the inventions are already well developed, and we cannot afford to move off campus unless we have the funds corporate investment would provide. If the university administrations are not willing to make significantly greater investments in technology transfer, then what is really needed to solve the above dilemma is an independent research broker or “match maker” able to critically evaluate a professor’s patented (or patent-pending) research, able to determine the likelihood that, when developed, the research can succeed on the open market, and able to help the start-up, university-based company to secure a corporate partner willing to provide financial backing. While there may be some organizations that specialize in this sort of service, most of us have not been able to find them. My suggestion is that The Science Advisory Board, or some other appropriate organization, survey academic entrepreneurs over the next few months to find out how pervasive this problem really is. Then, if the findings are similar to what I have outlined, several key biotech organizations should create symposium sessions where representatives of the three groups meet: academic entrepreneurs, biotech/biopharm directors of corporate development, and a few carefully chosen directors of university technology transfer. By discussing the associated problems openly, these three groups may be able to hammer out reasonable solutions. If we address the problem head-on, perhaps we can solve it. If we don’t, the “gorilla” will continue to “eat us up--well, not really, gorillas are vegetarians, aren’t they? ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Perspectives ] |
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