Cooking up New Stuff Using OPM

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Cooking up New Stuff Using OPM

• Mark Blanchard
• Technology Development Advisor
• VT Small Business Development Center

I2V April 11, 2008
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Federally Funded RD

• Regular Research funds the Research Institution
• Bigger, Longer, Broader Grants Contracts
• IP Ownership per RI policy
• Contracts to Primes (usually big firms aka BWB)
• Small Business Concern SBIR/STTR
• Intellectual Property Value Captured by SBC
• Store of Value for Principals
• Innovation hits the Market
• Often 1st Seed Funding, W/o Dilution, Continues

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New Ingredient For Profit Intent

• Whats Different Vs. Regular Research
• Funds go to Small Business
• May be less money Phase I Phase II 850K
• Elapsed period 3 Years
• Put Something on Market
• Where it can do good

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SBIR No Ordinary Acronym

• S Set aside for Small business
• 60 have lt 25 employees, most common is 2 to 9
  people
• 50 have annual sales lt 500,000
• B Grantee must be a for-profit Business
• I Funds high risk Innovation RD projects
• R Funds over 2.2 Billion in FY 2008 for
  Research
• SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH

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A Rich Alphabet Soup

• SBA VDED UVM
• OSP VT PTAC EPSCoR
• SBIR
• DoD DOE DHS
• DHHS/NIH USDA DO-ED
• NSF DOT NIST
• NASA NOAA DOC
• EPA

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Same Program, Two Flavors

• SBIR
• 2.5 of federal agency RD budgets set aside
  specifically for small business.
• 14 federal agencies participate.
• STTR
• Smaller program - 0.3 of federal agency RD
  budgets and 5 agencies.
• Requires small business collaboration with
  research institution.

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Long Prep Time

• Meals Vs. Snacks
• Rigorous Process for Significant Purpose
• Outcome has some uncertainty
• Strategic Vs. Tactical Time Frame
• Thinking 3 years ahead
• Fits Strategic Plan

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Three Layer Cake, Sort Of

• Phase I Proof of Concept Study
• 70,000 - 150,000
• 6 months
• Phase II Substantive RD
• Up to 750,000
• 2 years
• Phase III Commercialization
• Youre on your own (sort of). Typically private
  or non-SBIR government sources used to get to
  market.

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Spicing up Tech Transfer

• Tried True Commercialization Recipe
• To fortify your Research Impact, try SBIR
• Mix with your regular research,
• Its MSG for Raising Money
• Use the SBC as distribution vehicle.

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Techniques

• Define your Research Hypothesis
• Identify the Nuts, the Crunchy Bits
• Consider Variant Mixtures
• Pick a Solicitation Start Process Early
• Corral collaborators
• Take a rough cut at a Budget
• Get it down any way you can, Iterate.

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Once you get a taste

• Layer SBIRs from the same or different Agencies
  Watch out for Overlapping
• Stir in with Regular Research Grants
• Use as part of your core RD funding
• Entice partners
• Intellectual Property owned by the Enterprise

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Get Cookin withVT EPSCoR SBIR Phase 0

• Pre-seed grant program for prelim. data
• Up to 10,000
• Solicitation closed mid- Nov. Try next year.
• Since 1992, 140 awards worth 1.1 Million
• www.uvm.edu/EPSCoR

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Piqued your appetite?Theres help at the Barbie

• VT SBIR/STTR Help Resources
• Office of Sponsored Research
• www.uvm.edu/ospuvm/
• Mark Blanchard, VtSBDC Tech Advisor
• mblancha_at_vtsbdc.org [phone]
• Paul Hale, Ph.D., VT Technology Council
• Paul.hale_at_uvm.edu
• VT-PTAC at Thinkvermont.com
• SBIR.gov, ZYN.com Agency Websites