Author: Marie Powers

UF Tech Connect, a program of the Office of Technology Licensing at the University of Florida in Gainesville, has received the Award of Excellence in Technology Commercialization from the University Economic Development Association. The award recognizes the center’s role in creating high-tech companies, jobs, and private investments in Florida. During its 2008 fiscal year, UF Tech Connect helped client companies generate more than $86.9 million in private investments and create more than 77 jobs. The UF Tech Connect program brings together UF faculty, entrepreneurs, and investors, explains Jane Muir, director of the center. The center also develops new programs and sponsors events that foster new business creation. “The UF Tech Connect program plays an important role in helping to commercialize university discoveries by helping create technology-based start-up companies,” says Win Phillips, UF vice president for research.

Source: University of Florida News

National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Taiwan has signed a joint venture agreement with privately owned Taiwan Nitride Material, Inc., for the production of aluminum nitride (AlN). Both parties agreed to invest NT$30 million (US$932,000) for research and development of AlN, a semiconductor material widely used for heat radiation and insulation in microelectronics and optoelectronics. NCKU will realize an 18% share from transferring the production technique and expects to generate at least NT$100 million (US$3.1 million) in revenues from development of the technology over the next 10 years. Taiwan Nitride Material plans to apply AlN to the problem of heat dissipation, which is often encountered in LED devices and the main cause of failure, especially in lighting and large-screen TVs. Other applications of AlN include optoelectronics, dielectric layers in optical storage media, electronic substrates, and chip carriers that require high thermal conductivity. The technology also is suited to military applications and to steel and semiconductor manufacturing. The agreement is designed to foster continued partnership between the university and company as development continues.

Source: Reuters

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The Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) has inked an exclusive license with Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), of Lancaster, PA for Momentum-driven Vortex Phase Separator (MDVPS) technology. The Interphase Transport Phenomena Group of the Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) at TAMUS’ Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) developed the technology. ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing, including the design and development of heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops, and thermal storage devices for aerospace, military, commercial, and government R&D customers. The company plans to apply the TAMUS technology to design systems with higher heat transport and lower overall system size for applications such as air conditioning, humidity control, purification, and vapor compression. The addition of MDVPS technology expands ACT’s portfolio of two-phase technology, which uses evaporation and condensation to absorb and reject heat, allowing for direct contact heat and mass transfer. The technology has performed well in all orientations and under microgravity conditions, suggesting suitability both for aerospace and ground applications.

Source: PR-Canada

Every once in a while, an investment model comes along that turns the innovation community on its head. An emerging paradigm called royalty-based financing — applied to early-stage start-ups — may be another, according to Gregory T. Huang of Xconomy Seattle. The concept is simple. Instead of buying equity in a young company, an investor agrees to receive a percentage of the company’s monthly revenues – but the upside is capped at a limit of, say, three to five times his or her investment. Instead of waiting five or 10 years for a start-up to go public or become acquired, an investor can start seeing returns almost immediately. The approach should enable investors to fund a wider range of start-ups than those that typically receive venture backing, Huang says. The downside is that returns are capped, so investors who back the next Google or Amazon will still recoup only five times their investment. For entrepreneurs, the model provides start-up money without giving up an ownership stake in the company.

The concept for royalty-based financing dates back to early mining days, when companies needed financing to dig for oil, natural gas, and minerals. The idea also has been used for government-funded economic development programs. It is getting renewed interest from VCs and angel investors who increasingly need quick returns in a tough climate for exits. Royalty-based venture financing “has the real potential of becoming a major new sector in the private capital market,” says Arthur Fox, the founder of Royalty Capital Management in Lexington, MA, who first used the approach with start-ups in the early 1990s. Fox tried the royalty-based idea as a way to generate compensation from companies he was mentoring, instead of taking some stock. He found that the royalty-based system made start-ups more efficient with his time, and he would get paid every month. He next tried the strategy as an investor. “It changed everything, because the normal criteria in selecting companies as a venture capitalist is a high-growth one,” Fox says. “When you invest in a company, buying stock and equity, you have no way of getting out unless they become significantly large enough to have a liquidity event.” With the royalty-based financing approach, “every month you get a check, and it doesn’t matter if they ever have an IPO or get bought out,” he says.

If you want a home run, you still need a conventional equity-based deal, Huang concedes, and that’s the main objection of most VCs to the royalty-based approach. While the model may broaden their investment options, it goes against the traditional high-risk/high-reward model. But royalty-based financing addresses the dire reality of today’s financial markets, says Thomas Thurston, the founder of Portland, OR-based Growth Science International, a research and consulting firm. “Venture capitalists say, ‘I don’t know if I’m comfortable capping [returns] at 5x,’” Thurston says. “On the other hand, you’re probably not getting 5x right now.” Thurston concludes that “there are enough circumstances where [royalty-based financing] is a good tool,” given the traditional limitations that VCs face. The approach could enable more start-ups to get off the ground and more young companies with revenues to grow, compared with the 2% of businesses that attract VC funding. Although angel investors “will be the ones who do the earliest experimentation and start to prove” the royalty-based model, Thurston thinks some intrepid VCs will try the approach as well. “I think it’ll feel less sexy to a VC,” he says. “But VCs who are innovative will say, ‘Sexy or not, I like getting good returns.’

Source: Xconomy

The new director of the Pentagon’s research arm is visiting university campuses in an effort to rebuild bridges that were damaged under the Bush administration. Regina E. Dugan, who was appointed in July to lead the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has already visited the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; UCLA; Virginia Tech; and Texas A&M. During the Bush administration, DARPA’s guidelines for financing basic research changed markedly, says Peter Harsha, director of governmental affairs for the Computing Research Association, a Washington organization that represents academic institutions. The agency shortened the period of research financing and tied it to one-year “go, no-go” decisions, undercutting longer-term projects. DARPA enforced classification of research or prepublication review on scientific papers, and it established strict U.S. citizenship requirements for some financing. “It sounds like a lot of that is changing now,” Harsha says.

In her conversations with researchers, Dugan has noted the criticism of the shortened time horizon for DARPA financing and acknowledged that increasing classification of research lessened the impact of the agency’s technology on both civilian and military infrastructure. “University-based research is an important component of DARPA’s future activities,” Dugan said in a statement. “It is our goal to strengthen this partnership, enabling some of the best minds to serve with and in the government in the best interests of the nation and the U.S. Department of Defense.” On her visit to the California institutions, Dugan — a mechanical engineer who has conducted fundamental development work in chemical sensing technologies to detect explosives — spoke to small groups of faculty members from different departments in both the sciences and engineering. “She came by Berkeley and had a frank chat about the past and the future, and I’m pretty encouraged,” says David Patterson, a computer scientist at UC-Berkeley. “She seems to genuinely value academic input into the defense research enterprise and really wants to re-engage the research community in the DARPA mission.”

Source: The New York Times

Many tech transfer offices are stuck in reactive mode. They dutifully receive invention disclosures from faculty, assess them for commercial potential, file patents and provisionals, and seek licensees. This reactive strategy, while understandable given staff shortages and time constraints, does not even attempt to address one very critical factor in successful research commercialization efforts: what does the market want? Recognizing this, a growing number of TTOs have moved away from traditional and reactive “market push” strategies toward a more proactive “market pull” approach. They are actively engaging with innovation seekers in corporations and government agencies to determine their most pressing needs — and then feeding that information back to their research labs.

By listening to their markets, and building strong relationships with industry, they are smoothing a path to licensing revenues and assuring that more of their research dollars result in products that companies want and need. The concept isn’t hard to grasp, but execution can be difficult. It involves not only a shift in strategy and thinking, but also delicate negotiations with researchers who may balk at being “dictated to” about their research focus. In addition, it involves tough legwork in building a “listening” process in the form of strong industry relationships.

But the end result can significantly increase your research funding and licensing revenues while cementing long-term corporate partnerships. That’s why our Distance Learning Division has recruited one of the nation’s leaders in market pull strategy, Lina Ramos of Emerging Growth Enterprise, to give you practical strategies on determining the IP and innovation needs of industry and putting your researchers to work on meeting those needs. Shifting Your TTO from Market Push to Market Pull: Finding the White Space, Thursday, November 12th, from 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. EST. For complete details and to register, CLICK HERE.

And don’t miss these other strategy-filled events coming soon:

• October 28, 2009: The New TTO Metrics: Documenting Job Creation, Economic Impact, and Other “Dark Matter” Performance Indicators
• November 11: Home Run Strategies: Finding, Nurturing, and Securing Maximum Revenues from Disruptive University Technologies
• December 8, 2009: Tech Transfer Partnerships: Establishing Effective Legal and Operational Structures for Long-Term Success
• December 16, 2009: Post-License Monitoring and Support: Performance and Revenue Enhancement Strategies (and When All Else Fails How to Pull the Plug and Take Back Your IP)

Until Blue Water Satellite, Inc., came along, “nobody had ever sold satellite monitoring of a reservoir to anybody,” says Robert K. Vincent, professor of geology at Bowling Green (OH) State University and co-founder of OhioView, a remote sensing consortium of the state’s 10 largest public research universities. Six months after operations began, though, initial customers had bought into Blue Water enough that the BGSU spinoff could make its first royalty payment to the university. The payment was just $213, but “there will be more, and they will be bigger,” predicts Deanne Snavely, interim vice provost for research and dean of BGSU’s Graduate College. Blue Water is the first spinoff to commercialize IP developed at BGSU — specifically, a patented algorithm developed by Vincent to detect the presence and location of cyanobacteria in drinking water reservoirs. Blooms of the blue-green algae, which present human health risks, are mapped on images from the LANDSAT satellite and targeted for treatment. The patent supporting the technology was awarded in November 2006 to BGSU, which granted an exclusive license to Vincent’s fledgling company. Working through the licensing process took about 18 months, since “every agreement had to be done for the first time,” Snavely says. In the meantime, Blue Water received a $50,000 grant from the Toledo-based Regional Growth Partnership to analyze the company’s potential. Funded through the Ohio Department of Development, the grant was critical to attract investors to the company. “Blue Water wouldn’t have come out of the chute” without RGP and its finance arm, Rocket Ventures, Vincent says.

Blue Water is Rocket Ventures’ “first university-derived startup client company in northwest Ohio to make royalty payments to its parent university based on real earnings from a bona fide paying customer,” according to Greg Knudson, director of Rocket Ventures. A percentage of the university’s royalties goes to the inventors, and the balance goes into the BGSU research budget. The company has fewer than 10 clients, but several are repeat customers, Vincent says. And with some 150 drinking water reservoirs in Ohio, more than 11,000 nationwide, and more overseas — plus recreational lakes that could use the technology — a worldwide market is possible. “I think it has Google-type potential,” says Vincent, who has already turned down one prospective Blue Water buyer.

Source: Bowling Green State University

A battle is brewing between university researchers and the biotech seed industry over the development of genetically modified (GM) crops. In a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier this year, 26 public sector entomologists complained that crop developers are curbing their rights to study commercial biotech crops. At a July meeting organized by the American Seed Trade Association in Alexandria, VA, representatives from leading seed companies met with the entomologists and developed a set of principles to conduct such research. However, the seed companies are not obligated to follow the guidelines, and the industry’s reluctance to share its products with scientists is fueling the view that companies have something to hide.

Commercial entities have developed nearly all of the GM crops on the U.S. market, and their ownership of the proprietary technology allows them to decide who studies the crops and how. “Industry is completely driving the bus,” says Christian Krupke, an entomologist at Purdue University. Company control starts with a simple grower’s contract. Anyone who buys transgenic seeds must sign a technology stewardship agreement that prevents the buyer from conducting research on the seed or supplying it to a researcher. Thus, scientists can’t simply buy seeds for their studies, and farmers can’t slip them some on the side. “You need permission from industry, and you have to specify what you want to do with the plants,” says Bruce Tabashnik, an entomologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Seed companies can refuse a research request for any reason. Some may be isolated instances; others result from company policies. Even the notion of seeking permission from companies to conduct studies is a deterrent. “There are three strategies that [scientists] take,” says Elson Shields, an entomologist at Cornell University. “Some are just not doing the research. Some are changing their experimental protocols so that they are acceptable to industry, which may or may not be a good thing. And some are just going out and buying the seeds and doing the research in violation of the technology agreements.”

When requesting permission, scientists usually must describe in detail the design of their experiment, which provides companies with a head start in preparing a rebuttal. Once a company and scientist agree on the study design, they still must negotiate the terms of the research agreement. Negotiations often break down because companies want to limit or control publication of the study. “When you are funded by state and federal dollars, you have an obligation that the research you conduct is public and published,” says Beverly Durgan, dean of extension services at the University of Minnesota. “Signing research secrecy agreements is something we really can’t do.” Several major seed companies say they have negotiated multiyear agreements with major universities that give scientists the freedom to conduct and publish most agronomic research without requesting permission for every study. In fact, seed companies frequently pay academics to study precommercial products, similar to consulting arrangements or discovery work carried out for big pharmas. The companies say they have to keep tabs on public sector research to ensure the studies are done with good stewardship practices and in accordance with regulations, since they could be liable if an adverse event occurred with a precommercial product — even under the watch of a public sector scientist. Companies also say they must ensure that products that haven’t received approval for export to certain countries aren’t shipped there. And, since they want to protect their IP, they’re particularly averse to allowing the public sector to breed crops or to characterize the genetic composition of a GM plant, which can cost up to $100 million to develop.

In some instances, university scientists have raised concerns about data submitted to regulatory agencies, but they’ve had no recourse once the crops were commercialized. In 2001, for example, Johnston, IA-based Pioneer HiBred was developing a transgenic corn variety that contained a binary toxin to fend off rootworms. The company asked some university laboratories to test for unintended effects on a lady beetle. The laboratories found that nearly 100% of lady beetles that had been fed the crop died after the eighth day in the life cycle. When the researchers presented their results to Pioneer, the company forbade them to publicize the data. Two years later, Pioneer received regulatory approval for an anti-rootworm corn variety with the same toxin, but the data submitted to the EPA indicated no sign of potential harm to lady beetles. “If there’s a sense that a problem is being swept under the carpet, that only fuels the fear,” Tabashnik says. “It’s better to be open about it. It’s not as if one problem with one variety means the whole technology isn’t useful.”

Source: PuppetGov

Texas State University-San Marcos has partnered with Arizona-based MicroPower Global to develop cutting-edge “green energy” technology. The partnership, facilitated by the Texas Emerging Technology Fund and the Innovate Texas Foundation, will initially see MicroPower carry out its 12-month prototype development plan using the Multifunctional Materials Laboratory at Texas State. The idea is to build on a technology already planned for the 2010 BMW 5 Series, which converts heat into electricity for the car’s air-conditioning and other power systems. MicroPower believes its work in Texas will yield efficiencies that will, in turn, open up new applications, such as heat recovery from jet engines. During the initial phase, MicroPower aims to build its first thermoelectric-chalcogenide based chips, which can convert heat directly into electricity, leading to significant energy savings. The chips’ targeted efficiencies are in excess of 15%, or three times more efficient than conventional material. Working with Texas State, MicroPower’s goal is to drive development toward the world’s first 20% efficient modules, which they say will revolutionize the thermoelectric market. In addition, the clean, green technology is expected to save energy, reduce harmful emissions, and lead to the availability of substantial carbon credits.

Source: San Marcos Daily Record

Lexington, KY-based Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., has reached an agreement to expand its license for piggyBac technology to cover nearly all commercial applications. The IP, owned jointly by the University of Notre Dame, the University of Florida, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, enables facile genetic manipulation of most species. Transposagen uses this core technology to create TKO Knockout Rat Models — lab rats with a single gene disruption that mimic human disease. The laboratory of Malcolm J. Fraser, Jr., professor in Notre Dame’s department of biological sciences, was responsible for the early characterization and development of the piggyBac DNA transposon. PiggyBac technology now is used for genetic engineering in almost any animal, allowing for both mutagenesis (changing or disrupting genes) and transgenesis (adding genes). PiggyBac enables genetic manipulation for many species, including research animals and agriculturally important animals for which genetic manipulation was previously impossible or cost-prohibitive.

“Transposagen was already using piggyBac to generate tens of thousands of knockout rat lines in a very short period of time,” says Eric Ostertag, the company’s CEO. “We will now be able to use piggyBac to modify the genomes of other important organisms. PiggyBac is also finding uses in human therapeutics as it can be used to reprogram cells to become induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. In the long term, piggyBac may even be used for human gene therapy.” As part of the licensing deal, Transposagen will be responsible for distributing piggyBac to researchers and will control commercial sublicenses. “We will now be able to provide piggyBac to pharmaceutical companies as a novel tool for drug and biomarker discovery,” Ostertag says. The production of animal models is a $1.2 billion-a-year market and is expected to grow 12% annually through 2012.

Source: Reuters

The technology transfer office at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is veering off the traditional path to commercialization, with a pending sealed-bid private sale of a portfolio of 10 issued U.S. patents and foreign patent applications for noninvasive substance detection, including a noninvasive blood glucose monitor. The TTO has hired the IP brokerage firm ICAP Ocean Tomo, LLC, in Chicago to conduct the private sale for the hospital. CHLA had tried the traditional commercialization route with this particular technology for several years, says Jessica Rousset, director of the hospital’s TTO. However, the standard path was slow-moving, particularly given the limited availability of the inventor, who is also a healthcare professional, she reports.

In preparing for the private sale, ICAP Ocean Tomo conducted a portfolio valuation using a proprietary patent rating system. “They came back with a valuation that actually made a lot of sense to us,” says Rousset, though its assumptions seemed to neglect the upside potential of the IP. “If the technology were to be a front runner in the market, then the valuation that they gave us would be certainly on the lower end,” she states. To hedge this risk and alleviate the concerns of some of CHLA’s board members about the valuation, the TTO was able to add a second payment to the deal structure Ocean Tomo would be brokering. The milestone payment would be triggered “when a licensee’s revenues reach a certain threshold, whether from product sales or sublicensing.” The upfront fee included in the agreement is based on ICAP Ocean Tomo’s conservative valuation.

CHLA worked with ICAP Ocean Tomo to negotiate a customized template license agreement, which in turn will be conveyed to potential bidders. The agreement is a hybrid between a straight sale and a standard license agreement with all of the reporting obligations and various triggers for payments to the IP holder, she explains. CHLA isn’t granting the IP rights as an assignment, which is ICAP Ocean Tomo’s traditional model, “but as an exclusive license, which is necessary for federally funded IP,” she explains. “Furthermore, we were able to get the appropriate reservation of rights in the terms and conditions that is customary when licensing government-funded technologies,” allowing CHLA and other academic institutions to continue to work with the licensed IP. The financial terms pre-set in the license represent minimum bids. “So if the bid comes in under those amounts, we are under no obligation to accept them,” points out Rousset. A detailed article on the private sale, scheduled for November 30, appears in the October issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

Meital Zilberman, a professor in the department of biomedical engineering at Tel Aviv (Israel) University, has developed a biologically active “scaffold” from soluble fibers that may help humans to replace lost or missing bone by regrowing the tissue. With more research, the scaffold also could serve as the basic technology for regenerating other types of human tissues, including muscle, arteries, and skin, Zilberman says. “The bioactive agents that spur bone and tissue to regenerate are available to us,” she explains. “The problem is that no technology has been able to effectively deliver them to the tissue surrounding that missing bone.” Her artificial and flexible scaffolding connects tissues as it releases growth-stimulating drugs to the spot where new tissue is needed — like the scaffolding that surrounds an existing building during the addition of another structure. The technology is being licensed through Ramot, TAU’s tech transfer company. The invention could be used to restore missing bone in a limb lost in an accident or repair receded jawbones to secure dental implants, Zilberman suggests. The scaffold can be shaped so the bone will grow into the proper form. After a period of time, the fibers can be programmed to dissolve, leaving no trace. Zilberman’s technology also has potential uses in cosmetic surgery to “grow your own” cheekbones or puffy lips. But Zilberman says it’s far too early to think of such uses. She prefers to focus on applications such as dental implants, organ tissue regeneration, and peripheral nerve regeneration. “Our fibers provide all the advantages that clinicians in tissue regeneration are calling for,” Zilberman says. “Being thin, they’re ideal when delicate scaffolds are called for. But they can also be the basic building blocks of bones and tissues when bigger structures are needed.”

Source: PhysOrg.com

Large-scale, commercial involvement in university-based science has a detrimental impact on basic research, according to a report issued by Scientists for Global Responsibility, an independent body based in the U.K. “Science and the Corporate Agenda: the detrimental effects of commercial influence on science and technology” alleges that the drive among universities to commercialize introduces significant research bias and marginalizes work with social and environmental benefits. These impacts occur at different levels, including individual research studies, the agenda-setting process for R&D, and the communication of findings to fellow professionals, policy-makers, and the public. Direct commercial funding of a research study increases the likelihood that the results will favor the corporate sponsor, according to evidence from academic research in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors — for example, by selecting scientists who are sympathetic to the viewpoint of research sponsors. Intentional distortion or suppression of data is less common but does occur, especially in pharmaceutical and tobacco-funded areas, according to the report.

Research transparency also can be compromised through the use of commercial confidentiality agreements and other IP rights considerations. Scientists may have financial interests with the potential to compromise the research process, yet there is little monitoring or policing of the problem so its true extent is unknown, according to the report. The authors found evidence of this problem in the pharmaceutical, tobacco, and biotechnology sectors. When setting the priorities and direction of R&D, governments increasingly use economic criteria to decide which projects to fund, and these decisions often are made in close consultation with business. As companies expand the number and range of partnerships with universities, and as researchers feel increased pressure to attract corporate funding, academic departments are increasingly orienting themselves to commercial needs rather than to the broader public interest, the report charges. The result is a greater focus on IP rights in academic work. “Knowledge is increasingly being ‘commodified’ for short-term economic benefit,” the authors allege, undermining its application for wider public benefit and producing a narrow approach to scientific curiosity. The interest of business in emerging technologies such as synthetic biology and nanotechnology also is leading to decisions about these powerful technologies with little public consultation.

The report calls for universities to adopt minimum ethical standards to guide corporate partnerships. These standards should include social and environmental criteria as well as academic criteria and should be overseen by a special committee, it recommends. Universities also should openly publish information on the nature of their business partnerships and open a register of interests for academics — particularly those working in controversial areas of science and technology. The report also proposes the creation of an independent organization to disburse “a significant fraction” of business funding for scientific research. The aim of this body would be to fund research with a particular public interest and which may be neglected by mainstream funding sources. In addition, “more academic research needs to be conducted into the potentially detrimental effects of the commercialization of science and technology, especially within universities,” the report concludes.

Source: Science Business

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In the wake of a recent report by the Center for an Urban Future that criticized New York City and many of its academic institutions for failing to adequately commercialize research technology (see the previous item in TTT eNews), the city’s Economic Development Corporation and the New York City Investment Fund have teamed up on an initiative to fund biomedical research that has advanced beyond the walls of academia but is not yet ready to attract private funding. The $5 million Translational Research Fund is designed to propel the work of researchers whose ideas could result in the formation of New York City companies, enabling them to move beyond the so-called “valley of death.” The fund’s first move is the creation of BioAccelerate NYC, a competition that will select up to five researchers for grants of as much as $250,000. In addition to funding, winners will receive mentoring from veteran bioscience entrepreneurs to help move projects along the commercialization pipeline. The idea is to reduce risk to investors, who will then put up the dollars needed to launch companies, says Maria Gotsch, NYCIF’s chief executive. “We’re focusing on those opportunities that are big enough that you’re going to want to set up a company that’s going to want to hire people,” she says.

VCs say it’s often difficult to assess whether a given technology has reached an appropriate point for translation to the marketplace. The fund will make those determinations easier. “It will produce information that will help decide whether projects are ready for the commercial marketplace or whether they’re still academic,” says Geoff Smith, a juror in the BioAccelerate competition and managing partner at Ascent Biomedical Ventures, which invests in medical devices, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. Abram Goldfinger, executive director of technology transfer at NYU, says the university spins out an average of seven companies each year, but another 10 to 20 start-ups worthy of funding don’t get off the ground. “There’s a lot more technology than the currently available seed capital can move forward,” he points out. “This will be a helpful addition.”

Source: Crain’s New York Business

Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialization office for the University of Cambridge, U.K., has completed the first investment from its Discovery Fund into PneumaCare Limited. The investment will help to develop PneumaScan, a non-invasive lung function measuring and monitoring device. According to Dr. Gareth Roberts, PneumaCare’s CEO, current technology is inadequate for monitoring premature infants, children, and chest injury victims accurately without invasive action, such as tubes. PneumaScan allows fast and non-invasive measurement of lung function using a combination of technologies from the gaming and movie industries, coupled with image processing. “We believe the PneumaScan will make monitoring feasible, effective, and simpler, leading to better patient recovery,” Roberts says. The company was formed from a consortium that includes researchers from Cambridge University’s engineering department, Plextek Limited in Great Chesterford, U.K., and Addenbookes Hospital in Cambridge. The investment by the Discovery Fund, a seed fund that was launched this spring, was made alongside the Cambridge Capital Group, an angel investment network.

Source: Cambridge Network