Driven by the discovery of promising new drugs, agricultural products and
biotechnologies, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and its technology transfer
arm, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, generated more than $47.5 million in
licensing revenues last year.
UW-Madison and WARF ranked third in the country, in terms of the value of inventions
created by faculty members, according to a report released this week by the
Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM).
The value is determined by the amount of royalties and other income generated by
inventions. UW-Madison and WARF ranked third in terms of gross license income for
2004, behind the University of California System, which includes 10 campuses, and
New York University. WARF signed more than 200 new license deals in 2004 and filed
more than 300 new patent applications.
“One reason for our success is that we work with faculty at the best research
university in the country,” says Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of WARF. “As
the UW-Madison continues to raise the bar in terms of the quality and quantity of
its research, we benefit by the amount of new technology we can transfer to
industry.”
Gulbrandsen estimates that more than $1 billion in products based on UW-Madison
research was sold last year under license from WARF. The foundation manages more
than 940 active license agreements with companies around the world.
“Our mission is two-fold: to bring new inventions out of the labs for the benefit of
society and to support further research,” says Gulbrandsen. “We’re happy with this
ranking because it indicates that we’re achieving our goals.”
A total of 164 institutions participated in the annual survey conducted by AUTM,
including more than 90 percent of the nation’s top research institutions. The report
shows a direct correlation between the amount of money an institution spends on
research and the amount of money generated by commercialization activities. In 2004,
UW-Madison spent more than $760 million on research.
WARF is a private, nonprofit organization that patents discoveries made by
UW-Madison inventors and licenses those technologies to companies for
commercialization. Each year, WARF returns its gross licensing revenues to the
UW-Madison in the form of an annual grant, which the university uses to support
further scientific research. Last year, the gift totaled $55 million.
AUTM’s annual ranking of U.S. university technology transfer offices is considered
to be the most comprehensive survey of its kind. Each year, the international
association of technology managers collects data on the licensing activities of its
constituency to track trends and to document the public benefit and economic impact
of technology transfer.
