OHSU turns innovations into commercial opportunities at r...( PORTLAND Ore. By most measures of a...)

PORTLAND, Ore. By most measures of an academic medical centers success in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, fiscal year 2007 was a banner year for Oregon Health & Science University.

• OHSU researchers disclosed 132 inventions, more than in any previous year in the universitys historyand four times the number in 2000.

• Five new startup companies based on OHSU discoveries were incorporated during the year, bringing the total to 33 since 2000 and 64 since the early 1970s.

• Sixty-three nonclinical research agreements totaling $6.7 million, up 37 percent from 4.9 million in the previous year.

• Income from commercialization of inventions licensed by OHSU nearly doubled to $1.23 million from $719,800 the previous year.

• The market value of equity OHSU owns in six startups whose shares are publicly traded Novacea, Inc.; Adherex Technologies Inc.; Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc.; Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc.; StemCells, Inc. and Fonix Corporation reached $2.25 million at the end of the fiscal year, up from $1.5 million the previous year.

We are starting to see the payoff from the research facilities made possible by the taxpayers and private donors through the Oregon Opportunity and from the growing aggregation of world-class researchers who have been attracted to OHSU in recent years because of the critical mass they see developing here, said Dan Dorsa, Ph.D., OHSU vice president for research. The breakthroughs reflected in these numbers have added to OHSUs intellectual capital, which is the foundation for commercial licensing opportunities and biomedical startup companies and, ultimately, the development of new medical therapies, pharmaceuticals and devices.

J. Timothy Stout, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., OHSU vice president for commercialization strategies, added: The achievements in the last fiscal year make it clear that OHSU is well poised to take its commer
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