Responding to Relationship Changeswith a Commercialisation Partner

1
Responding to Relationship Changes with a
Commercialisation Partner

• Emma Toumi, Imperial College
• AURIL Meeting Selling the University Silver,
  2nd July 2008

2
Research Office at Imperial College
IMPERIAL COLLEGE FACULTIES Engineering Medicine
Natural Sciences
Research Office Systems, Policy and Governance
Lynne Cox Director of IP and Research Contract
Policy
EU Team
Research Contract Policy
Emma Toumi IP Management Team
3
Relationship between Imperial College and
Imperial Innovations
Medicine
Natural Sciences
Engineering
Imperial College
IP Management Team
Imperial Innovations
4
History

• 1986 Imperial Innovations was founded
• 1997 Imperial Innovations transformed from an
  Imperial College department to a separate
  company, wholly owned by Imperial College
• 2005 Imperial College sold part of its
  shareholding of Imperial Innovations in a
  private placing
• 2006 Imperial Innovations floats on AIM stock
  market

5
Imperial Colleges Tech Transfer Office 1986 -
2005

• In 1986, Imperial College was one of the first
  Universities in Europe to set up a technology
  transfer office Imperial Exploitation Ltd
  (IMPEL)
• Imperial Innovations received funds from
  Imperial College to employ staff and file patents
• IP commercialisation initially was on an ad hoc
  basis
• Commercialisation activity grew as IP awareness
  of academics increased and Imperial College fully
  merged with the major west London medical schools
  in 1997

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2005 - Liberation of Imperial Innovations

• Imperial Innovations business model
• IP Licences
• Forming spin-out companies around IP platforms
• By 2005, it had formed 50 spin-out companies
  around Imperial IP
• In 2004/2005 it took 158 invention disclosures
  and filed 47 patents
• Steps taken to make Imperial Innovations more
  independent
• Formalising an exclusive pipeline from Imperial
  College
• Served to manage the opportunities and
  formalities of IP transfer and revenue share
• Raising money by a private placement to invest
  into the spin-out portfolio

7
AIM Listing

• Imperial Innovations floated on AIM stock market
  on 31 July 2006
• The company was listed and raised 26 million
• It was the first public listing of a University
  owned commercialisation company in the UK
• In the first year of trading as a listed company
  it invested 13 million in spin-out companies
• Imperial College now has a 51 shareholding in
  Imperial Innovations

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Financial changes for Imperial Innovations and
Imperial College

• Imperial Innovations running costs are
  self-funded
• Staff are not Imperial College employees
• No funding from Imperial College to pay for
  patent costs
• Imperial Innovations pays rent to Imperial
  College

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Changes Required in Imperial College

• Requirement to identify, protect, track, and
  transfer IP to Imperial Innovations
• Diligence process to ensure that only
  unencumbered IP is transferred
• Requirement to support the academic community on
  IP advice
• Management of the relationship with Imperial
  Innovations
• Requirement to handover non-commercial
  activities, historically done by Imperial
  Innovations, to Imperial College

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Imperial College IP Management Team

• Activity by Imperial College over the past 6
  months
• Creation of an IP database containing
• Records of College IP
• research contracts with industrial funders
• Licences
• Recruitment of 3 IP Executives to
• Take on non-commercial IP activity
• Perform due diligence on College IP
• Support the academic community with advice on IP

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Future Plans

• Strategy for commercialising IP that Imperial
  Innovations re-assigns to Imperial College or
  technologies it opts not to commercialise
• Support Imperial Innovations in the
  commercialisation process whilst ensuring that
  there is complementarity between decisions on
  public benefit versus commercial exploitation