Bay Area schools rank high in life science commercialization - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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The universities, which are credited with giving rise to the biotechn industry in the 1970s througj the work of theirpioneering scientists, cracker the top five on the quality and quantity of their U.S. biotechh patents out of total of424 institutions, with UCSF snatchinbg the number two spot and Stanford sliding into according to the Milken Institute's Mind to A Global Analysis of University Biotechnologyg Transfer and Commercialization study published this In addition, UCSF was ranked fourth in the worlc on the strength of its biotecuh research, as measured by publications and citations, out of 683 peers.
Stanfords landed in the same spot for its abilityy to commercialize discoveries, as measuredr in part by licensintg income and startups, out of 135 schoolas in the U.S. and Canada. The Palo Alto powerhouse was outrankedc only by the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology, the Universityt of California system and the California Institute of Technologyh in its commercialization prowess, while ahead of it in U.S. biotechh patents was the Universit y of Texas inthe No. 1 spot, followed by UCSF and Johnsx Hopkins University.
Stanford, however, was outshoned by 11 others on the qualityh and quantity of its biotech publications with Harvard the University of Tokyo and the Universityt of London taking the topthree honors, whilse UCSF landed in 19th place on its abilit to commercialize inventions. (UC by the way, rankeds 25th in publications, 29th in commercialization and 7thin patents.) Those finishes are impressive nevertheless, notes Perry Wong, one of the study'x authors, who says a university's ability to take researc h from lab to shelf is a multifactorial equatiom that includes the quality of basic research, how aggressived scientists are about publishing their work, and how activelhy they and their licensing offices try to sell it to UCSF and Stanford are well knownn for their ability to lure high calibefr scientists.
UCSF scientist Herbert Boyer's groundbreaking researchu in recombinant DNA led him to launcnhthe world's first biotech company , for example, whil e Stanford scientists Stanley Cohen and Paul Berg, alongy with Mr. Boyer, developed many of the geneti engineering tools used today by the The vaunted universities also have healthyresearch budgets, another key to successful commercialization, says Mr. a senior managing economist at While the study found that the average researcb expenditureby U.S.
universities was $225 million, UCSF'ds biomedical research budget dwarfs that by a country mile at awhoppinvg $766 million for fiscak year 2004-2005 while Stanford'sa medical school alone pulled in $326 million in research funda in 2004. Also boosting their rankings, Mr. Wong says, is UCSF'se and Stanford's proximity to the biotech and finance Both sit in the heart ofthe world's largest biotech cluster and venture capital "The proximity factor is critical in that it allowa faculty to work closelg with industry and have accesxs to experts," says Mr. Wong. Having a well-staffed and effectivse technologytransfer office, however, can't be underestimated, Mr.
Wong Researchers were surprised at how importantfthis is, he says. The authorzs found, for instance, that for every dollar invested inan office'xs staff, the university receives more than $6 in licensing incoms while for each additional year a tech offic e is in operation comes $228,00o of incremental licensing income. Most institutions have betweemn 6 and 12 staff members in their technologyytransfer offices, he says, and most came into beinfg after the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, whicn granted universities the right to own, licensee and market their research. By Stanford has had its Office of Technology Licensing since 1970 and boasts a staf fof 30.
It's annual budgety is about $4 million and in fiscal year it received 430licensing disclosures, generated income from 428 licenses and pulled in grossx royalties of $384 million. UCSF's Office of Technology Managemeng has a staffof 12, a $1.1 million budge and officially formed in 1996 aftee the UC system decentralized its technology transfer