Public Engagement

A story last week on a new treatment for macular generation - a leading cause of blindness in people over 55 - brings to the fore the promise and complexity of university research with public health and commercial potentials.

Interdisciplinarity:The invention comes from the collaboration of two university faculty: Art Erdman (Mechanical Engineering) and Timothy Olsen (Opthamology). As so often the case, a development with real public impact comes from interdisciplinary work.

Secrecy: Although one is certainly curious about the nature of the invention, no information has yet been divulged, because to do so might damage the patent application and enable pirating of the technology. This is presumably temporary, but goes against the grain of the openness expected of university research.

University involvement: The University of Minnesota is creating a start-up compancy to market the invention, and will initially be the controlling stockholder. This contrasts with the usual process of licensing an invention to an existing company. Such an arrangement may get the invention to the stage of practical utility quicker, assuming it passes development hurdles and gets regulatory approval. But it puts the University in an unfamiliar commercial role.

Partnership with the private sector: According to the story in the July 12 StarTribune,

Mulcahy [the University's Vice President for Research] said the university used the expertise of the university's Office of Business Development, and signed on a proven entrepreneur to serve as the new company's CEO. The university will lend the fledgling company $50,000 to get started. The company then will issue 2.5 million of its 3 million initial shares to the university, and look for investors. The stock has no value now, but it would acquire value as the company takes off. The windfall to the university would come from the rising value of the stock, plus licensing income that comes from the sale of the product.

If it works, all this will take time. Mulcahy estimates it will take the company five years to begin mining the commercial applications for the Olsen-Erdman invention. In the meantime, it will require as much as $25 million more in funding from investors to get the product to the marketplace.

There are those who criticize universities for becoming too commercial, and others who contend that we don't do enough to get our scholarship into public use. This case exemplifies all the challenging complexity of public engagement through technology transfer. It will be fascinating to see the story unfold. And as an over-55er, I'm hoping it works.

Links:
University of Minnesota News Service story
StarTribune story