transfer and appropriate

[Ian Murray <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

Examining the Tech Transfer
Region Looks to Turn Public R&D Into Private Business

By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 4, 2003; Page E01


Chesapeake PERL Inc. had an audacious-sounding technology: Create proteins
needed for biotechnology research by growing them in the cells of
caterpillars, then pureeing the bugs into a sort of caterpillar smoothie
from which vital proteins could be refined.

But without its local ties, the College Park company would probably have
gotten nowhere. It was founded by two professors at the University of
Maryland, got its start with help from the university and had its
technology tested at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Despite Chesapeake PERL's progress, the region's economic development
officials say that repurposing research funded by universities or the
federal government for the commercial sector is rare. Even though the
Washington area is a national leader in federal and university research
spending, few of the fruits of that work make it into the private sector.

Senior business, government and nonprofit leaders pledged yesterday to
change that. The executives were meeting at the Potomac Conference,
sponsored by the Greater Washington Board of Trade, an annual event where
top local leaders discuss major issues facing the region. The conference
participants are looking to what's known as technology transfer -- turning
public research and development into private enterprise -- as a key to the
region's economic health.

Although it's one of the world's leading research centers, the Washington
area continually trails such places as Silicon Valley, Boston and Seattle
in measures of innovation and in creating companies building cutting-edge
technologies -- the sort of firms that typically pay the highest wages and
achieve the greatest growth.

"In terms of our R&D infrastructure, we look like Massachusetts," Phillip
A. Singerman, executive director of the Maryland Technology Development
Corp., said at the conference yesterday. "In terms of our R&D performance,
we look more like Missouri."

Among the big reasons for the gap, attendees said, are cultural and legal
barriers to commercializing technology developed at federal research labs
and local universities.

Attendees urged universities and federal research centers to do more to
encourage tech transfer. They formed a regional task force to increase
commercialization of this technology, including setting up a mentor
network. The Greater Washington Initiative, which markets the region, also
plans to begin tracking data on technology commercialization here.

Federal labs typically have few incentives to sell or spin off
technologies that they develop. Their focus, after all, is not on figuring
out how their innovations would sell on the open market.

"Our people are not motivated by [return on investment], but by return on
technology," said Alan S. Rudolph, a program manager at the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Moreover, a federal researcher might have a weapons technology with
potential use outside the government, but not know it.

"We often are not the best judges of what technologies are most
economically productive," said Alphonso V. Diaz, director of the NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. "There are no incentive systems
for identifying and transferring a technology," he added.

That is doubly complicated in agencies involved with defense research,
when safeguards must be taken to ensure that technology does not end up in
the hands of potential enemies.

Similar problems exist with research conducted in universities. Conference
attendees representing local schools said that Washington area
institutions have been slower than those elsewhere to encourage the
commercialization of research conducted on campus.

Many major technology companies got their start with close ties to
universities, such as Hewlett-Packard Co. with Stanford, Polaroid Corp.
with MIT and Qualcomm Inc. with the University of California at San Diego.
Local schools have few such ties.

"On the West Coast, and in Boston, you see professors work half time at a
company and half time at their university," said Wayne T. Hockmeyer,
chairman of the Gaithersburg-based biotechnology firm MedImmune Inc. "That
seems to be absent here, and that has puzzled me for some time."

"Tenure requirements seem to preclude contract work with companies" said
Edward M. Rudnic, chief executive of Advancis Pharmaceutical Corp. in
Gaithersburg. "It's perceived as less than academic."

Nonetheless, federal and university ties are essential for many young tech
companies, Terry E. Chase, president of Chesapeake PERL, said in a phone
interview. "As a very young company, we didn't have labs, and needed to
have proof of principle for our technology," she said. Aberdeen provided
that. The company also got access on the base to proteins it needs for
research. "They've become an extension of our company," Chase said.