AUTM’s 2010 Better World Report Highlights

 AUTM released their Better World Report for 2010 highlighting academic innovations commercially developed through technology transfer that are improving the quality of life.  Here is a quote from their press release.

A device that allows the blind to ―see‖ via electrical pulses applied to the tongue…a collagen scaffold to treat damaged joints…a new vaccine to prevent shingles…an artificial lung that provides patients with both mobility and comfort during treatment…a program that vastly improves literacy among middle and high-school age students…a device that transforms wheelchairs into all-terrain vehicles…a vaccine to prevent HPV…

These are just a few of the discoveries featured in the 2010 edition of the AUTM Better World Report, a collection of stories about technologies that originated in academic research and were brought to the public through technology transfer, the process of licensing and commercializing academic research so it can become real products that make the world a healthier and safer place.

Senator Birch Bayh writes the foreword and includes impressive evidence of Bayh-Dole’s success.

• More than 6,000 new U.S. companies were formed from university inventions.

• 4,350 new university licensed products are in the market.

• 5,000 active university-industry licenses are in effect, mostly with small companies.

• More than 153 new drugs, vaccines or in vitro devices have been commercialized from federally funded research since enactment of Bayh-Dole.

• Between 1996 and 2007 university patent licensing made:

❍ a $187 billion impact on the U.S. gross domestic product,

❍ a $457 billion impact on U.S. gross industrial output; and

❍ 279,000 new jobs in the United States.

A fairly impressive accomplishment considering before Bayh-Dole Senator Bayh states:

 “We found 28,000 government-funded inventions gathering dust on agency shelves with not a single drug commercialized when the government owned the patent.”

The report is an interesting read as it includes a small snapshot of what the academic and private sector can do when patent ownership incentives are properly aligned. 

 

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