Oxford University Innovation Sales are Up
21st October 2009
Oxford University Innovation, the University of Oxford’s technology transfer company, has announced that sales turnover increased by 30 per cent from £3.5 million last year to £4.7 million for the year ending March 2008.
Oxford University Innovation, the University of Oxford’s technology transfer company, has announced that sales turnover increased by 30 per cent from £3.5 million last year to £4.7 million for the year ending March 2008.
As a result, Isis was able to return £2.5 million to the University for distribution to its researchers, departments and centrally.
During the year, Isis concluded 74 licensing and option deals, 102 consulting deals, created 4 new spin-outs and filed 68 new priority patent applications.
Oxford University Innovation Sales
The value of the University’s spin-out share portfolio has also increased significantly.
Isis managing director Mr Tom Hockaday said: “This is a tremendous result for Isis, for the University and for the inventors we work with.
“The University’s research funding has been growing at around 15 per cent per year, and at Isis we’ve seen the benefits of this in the form of greater research and inventive output.
“This year, we will receive increased support from the University to invest in Oxford’s intellectual property portfolio, a strong platform from which we can grow Isis into its third decade.
Over the past year, Isis has expanded to manage the increase in invention disclosures and deal flow, and staff numbers have increased to over fifty.
“It’s particularly gratifying also to see the increase in consultancy agreements,” said Hockaday. “They’ve grown from 59 in 2006 and 89 in 2007 to 102 in this last financial year, as we’ve focused our efforts on making the consultancy process a smooth and successful one for both academics and companies.”
As well as signing licenses with a number of large corporates, Isis was involved in securing £4 million from the Wellcome Trust to continue Phase IIb clinical trials of an Oxford-developed vaccine for tuberculosis.
Isis technologies currently under development include:
• Video Google: a software which searches for objects in videos and movies. Objects can be retrieved despite scale and viewpoint changes.
• Oxford Neotest: bioreactors that mimic the three-dimensional structure of the body’s own tissues. The tissue models have the potential to improve testing of new medicines.
• Swarm intelligence: an artificial intelligence technique which models the structure of proteins, improving the ability of drug developers to design drugs.
• Secure financial transactions: Protocols developed to enhance the security of card-present financial transactions and via insecure communications networks.
Oxford University Innovation is the University of Oxford’s technology transfer company. It provides researchers with commercial advice, funds patent applications and legal costs, negotiates exploitation and spin-out company agreements, and identifies and manages consultancy opportunities for University researchers. It is a subsidiary of the University of Oxford and has established itself as one of the best University technology transfer companies in the UK. www.innovation.ox.ac.uk
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