Contact:
Andrew Cohn, 608 263 2821 or cohn@warf.org
Statement of Carl Gulbrandsen, Managing Director of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and President of WiCell Research Institute:
Governor Doyle’s proposal for the new public/private Wisconsin Institute for Discovery is an absolutely critical step for UW-Madison and Wisconsin to retain its national leadership in stem cell research. This multi disciplinary facility will have tremendous positive synergies throughout campus and in particular will enable basic research inventions to feed into the new translation facility at the medical school to help patients. WARF is confident that this facility will produce extremely valuable and lucrative inventions that will provide significant financial return for the university. It will also generate new start up companies to benefit the economy of our state.
California and other states have recognized the economic potential of Wisconsin’s leadership in stem cell research. The Wisconsin Institute for Discovery will be an important response to California’s challenge. It should be noted that WARF holds the basic patents for the stem cell technology along with about 30 additional patents and applications for additional discoveries made by Dr. Thomson and his research team. Therefore, any California company that wants to take advantage of the funds available from the bonds will need a license from WARF. We expect our licensing efforts to be accelerated by this huge infusion of funds, and we expect both short and long term benefits. The short term will be from upfront fees and milestone payments, while the long term royalty payments could be significant, and would benefit WARF and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I want to thank Governor Dole and his staff for recognizing the importance of keeping this university and our state competitive.
