Archive by category | IP/ Tech Transfer

The State of Translational Research

The State of Translational Research

The blog post title above is also the title of a report by Sigma-Aldrich (published with partners AAAS and Science). The report is based on 608 respondents, 45% of which were in the US; 23% of respondents were graduate students. It’s not so long, as reports go, and you might easily read it on the bus or while eating lunch. I’ll give you a few nuggets from the report here to whet your appetite.  Read more

Academic Serendipity to Clinical, Commercial Success

Academic Serendipity to Clinical, Commercial Success

I always say to my colleagues “Success has no formula, but failure does.” Often, biotech spin-offs yield more in experience than they do history. But I would like to share the story of a colleague of mine who went from a humble academic job in the microbiology department in a national university to a clinical success story. His lab in Tokyo is now providing cell-based immunotherapy via 6,000 transfusions a year, from all over Japan and from neighboring countries. Hiroshi Terunuma started his career as a medical microbiologist in the Yamanashi University School of Medicine in the late ’90s, when  … Read more

Non-dilutive financing to power your leverage startup – part 1

Non-dilutive financing to power your leverage startup - part 1

In this post, we will discuss the use of non-dilutive financing to incubate early-stage technologies with commercial potential prior to company formation. This strategy is designed to advance technologies originating from, or based in, an academic environment. In a later post, we will explain how the non-dilutive financing strategy can evolve when the startup company is founded. Non-dilutive finance and the Leverage Startup Non-dilutive financing is a central tenet of the Leverage Startup Model. This model is a capital-efficient vehicle to advance research-intensive technology, through its earliest and riskiest stage, toward commercialization. The Leverage Startup is designed to leverage established  … Read more

The Patent System in Brazil

The Patent System in Brazil

During the ’60s, biology was not patentable. Genetic engineering started during the ’70s, but it was called recombinant DNA technology back then. Investments made in this area demanded a solution for intellectual property (IP) rights being applied to biology.  Read more

Malaysian BIONEXUS incentives

Malaysian BIONEXUS incentives

As we started our work in Japan in 2000 on nano-scaffolds for corneal limbal stem cells (jointly with a group of polymer scientists headed by Yuichi Mori), the very first strategic move was to start collaborating in India, for two reasons. One was we needed a solution for treatable corneal epithelial damage-related blindness, and the other was the availability of qualified and skilled corneal surgeons. The next move was to have a technology transfer tie with Malaysia, simply because the local investors there were willing to invest their hard-earned money in a biotech venture focused on a personalized immune-cell-based cancer  … Read more

Talent is Talent

Talent is Talent

Even if the total numbers of attendees at BIO is down from its peak, it’s still an incredibly large gathering of diverse people across the biotech spectrum. The exhibit hall is a good reflection of that. I can remember when the hall was just a collection of simple individual company stands – a few employees in a booth, a poster hanging behind them. But as the industry grew, the exhibitors changed; the first sign was a marked increase in law firms, because once it was clear how valuable IP is to biotech, biotech became valuable to lawyers. (That’s not cynicism  … Read more

Brazil’s laws

Brazil's laws

Biotechnology development in Brazil is moving, but slowly, due to the lack of (1) investments from the private sector and (2) a clear and consistent exercise of the Brazilian patent law (9279/96). In this commentary we will deal with the first issue and in the next with the patent context.  Read more

Reverse brain drain and the Indian biotech “niche”

Reverse brain drain and the Indian biotech "niche"

For the past few years, we have received significantly more resumes from native Indian post-doctoral fellows from the US, searching for opportunities in India, which tickled me to explore the phenomenon of “reverse-brain-drain” in India and the biotech field. This phenomenon became popular after the dot-com bubble crisis, which forced many IT professionals from Silicon Valley to return to India. In my opinion, China has gained a lot with the reverse brain drain phenomenon in biotech, as evident by the number of publications in high impact journals. The “knowledge-hub” creation-oriented governmental policies could be a major contributor. However, the situation  … Read more

No Genes, No Future

No Genes, No Future

The biotech industry relies strongly on genetic engineering, and on genes being characterized and properly expressed. This was clear to me more than three decades ago, after Herbert Boyer expressed in California the insulin gene in E. coli. I’m a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science, and since the ‘80s, I’ve stated that countries that do not identify genes will never build a competitive pharmaceutical industry, or agbusiness industry, or, more recently, biofuels industry. Well, Brazil does not have its genes, as they say. And its pharmaceutical industry has accumulated a US$7 billion debt, when comparing sales to importing.  Read more