{"id":54648,"date":"2009-11-11T13:53:55","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T18:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologytransfertactics.com\/content\/?p=5275"},"modified":"2009-11-11T13:53:55","modified_gmt":"2009-11-11T18:53:55","slug":"credit-where-credit-is-due-one-daily-newspaper-gets-tech-transfer-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/54648","title":{"rendered":"Credit where credit is due: One daily newspaper gets tech transfer right"},"content":{"rendered":"

After taking the mass media to task last week<\/a> for its often one-sided negative coverage of tech transfer, it’s only fair to recognize an outstanding portrayal of a tech transfer professional in the consumer press. Writing in The Cleveland Plain Dealer<\/em>, reporter Tom Breckenridge profiles Mark Coticchia, vice president for research and technology management at Case Western Reserve University. Breckenridge describes Coticchia as “one of the most important figures” in remaking the Ohio economy. That’s heady stuff, considering that tech transfer professionals usually toil in obscurity, but probably accurate. Here are some excerpts:<\/p>\n

When Coticchia arrived on the job eight years ago, an e-mail from a noted faculty member informed him that his mission to spin university research into new business “was all a bunch of bull- – – -.” Coticchia took the missive in stride, admitting that “I had to make people believe it could be done. That e-mailer couldn’t have articulated the challenge in front of me any better.” Since then, Coticchia has parlayed VC savvy, a well-paid staff, and a smile that beams like a lighthouse at midnight into a steady flow of high-tech deals and new business. The university collected $16.3 million in licensing revenue in 2008 — eight times the amount collected by Ohio State University, despite OSU’s much larger research budget. Coticchia’s office also had a hand in spinning out five companies from CWRU last year.<\/p>\n

Coticchia “is really good at the blocking and tackling” of technology transfer, says Ray Leach, CEO of JumpStart, a venture development organization that has invested in seven CWRU start-ups. “He’s in a complex work environment,” Leach adds. “It’s not the easiest thing to commercialize and monetize technology quickly.” Coticchia and his staff engage in a daily dance of diplomacy, trying to balance the interests of multiple parties: university officials who insist on fair royalties for commercial successes born in their labs, faculty inventors who want a reward for their sweat equity, and companies that don’t want to pay too much for rights to the innovations. Then there’s the patent and market research that Coticchia’s staff manages in the years-long grind of moving innovation to market. “The mix of people, technology, and capital is different for every opportunity,” Coticchia says. “To get the right mix at the right time is absolutely critical to success. That’s why it’s more art than science.” Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, last year asked Coticchia to head efforts to drive more technology transfer — and community prosperity — from Ohio’s 14 universities and 23 community colleges. “He’s just exceptional in his understanding of what’s needed to be done and how to leverage Case Western Reserve as a driver for the Northeast Ohio economy,” Fingerhut says. “I really came to believe that he was the best in the state in this area.”<\/p>\n

Coticchia previously headed the TTO at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also co-founded Lycos, the Internet search engine. In 2000, he left the university for a VC firm, where he courted some of the country’s top research institutions for technology-related investment opportunities. His real-world business experience distinguishes him from tech transfer leaders who start their careers as researchers before moving to the business side. Coticchia’s mindset has always been that of a venture capitalist, according to Mark Crowell, past president of the Association of University Technology Managers. “Mark thinks about what makes a good [business] opportunity, the potential for emerging companies, what the risks could be,” Crowell says. Coticchia admits that his approach hinges on hiring people with the attributes valued by VC firms: technology backgrounds and advanced degrees, sales and marketing experience, and an understanding of company formation and product development. To attract these skills in a competitive industry, CWRU’s key staffers are paid 20% more than the industry average. But they’ve delivered results. The $16.3 million in licensing revenue collected in 2008 is eight times what it was when Coticchia arrived, and the TTO crafted 31 licensing deals last year, up from six in 2001.<\/p>\n

Source: cleveland.com<\/a><\/p>\n


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After taking the mass media to task last week for its often one-sided negative coverage of tech transfer, it’s only fair to recognize an outstanding portrayal of a tech transfer professional in the consumer press. Writing in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, reporter Tom Breckenridge profiles Mark Coticchia, vice president for research and technology management at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}