Registration ›Lately I have been reading Spin Outs: Creating Businesses from University Intellectual Property. The author Prof. Graham Richards provides valuable guidance to entrepreneurs who think about creating high-tech companies from University’s intellectual property. The book is based on cases from Oxford University’s technology transfer company, Isis Innovation Ltd, which was founded in 1988. The University has generated a lot of success in the area of spin-out companies and the writer has been closely involved in many aspects of this activity.
Prof. Richards starts by saying that intellectual property can be exploited for public benefit without compromising the traditional values: teach and to do research. The first company that came out of Isis Innovation was Oxford Molecular Ltd. The researchers took it from a £350,000 startup to a public company with a capitalized value of £450 million. However, in the end the company was sold for around £70 million and netted £10 million for the university.
As the author writes, it is not easy to convince an intelligent academic of the proposition with logic such as: “at the moment you own the IP related to your research, but in future we, the university, will own it and you will be better off.” Coverage of legal and patent costs combined with a reward system can indeed be beneficial to the academic. Prof. Graham Richards further describes income sharing models connected to total net revenues of a spin-out. The philosophy of Isis is to “concentrate on those researchers who want to transfer technology. The model is to create on-going interest so that the academics would approach the technology transfer company rather than the other way around.
I highly recommend reading the book. It covers all stages of working with a spin-out. Examples are drawn from author’s experiences including Mrs Thatcher’s contributions to business climate, dealing with Monsanto VC fund and sex as one unforeseen problem in the thriving company. One of the interesting insights is a three axis approach to the formation of spin-outs. How will University technology transfer look ten years from now?
Artūras Vedrickas, class of ICM 2011