Researchers Encouraged to Move Ideas, Discoveries to Marketplace

When cardiologist Craig January, MD, PhD, came to the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) from the University of Chicago 16 years ago, he was surprised to hear some of his new colleagues talk about creating startup companies to commercialize ideas and discoveries resulting from their research.

 

"Such things were not typically discussed at Chicago," says January, now a School of Medicine and Public Health professor of medicine and co-director of the Inherited Arrhythmias Clinic at UW Hospital and Clinics. "I found the culture here to be different-more supportive of translational research and technology transfer."

 

So a few years later, January was not that surprised when stem cell pioneer James Thomson, PhD, professor of anatomy (now part of the Department of Cell and Regenerative Biology) at the School of Medicine and Public Health and director of regenerative biology at the Morgridge Institute for Research, invited him and School of Medicine and Public Health cardiologist Timothy Kamp, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, to explore the idea of joining in a company that would use stem cells to make human heart cells that could be used in testing new drugs.

 

Thomson had accomplished his ground-breaking feat of isolating and growing human embryonic stem cells in culture and was on his way to deriving stem cells from skin cells. Kamp was working on growing heart cells from embryonic stem cells and January had long been involved in research on lethal cardiac reactions to new drugs.

 

Stem cells could be used as tools in drug testing and other scientific endeavors much sooner than they could be used for therapeutic purposes, Thomson reasoned, and heart cells were critically needed.

 

The idea of creating a company appealed to them all.

 

"A company would make our discoveries much more accessible, and we wanted to help shape the way they were commercialized," says Thomson.

 

So together with blood researcher Igor Sluvkin, MD, PhD, School of Medicine and Public Health associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, the investigators created Cellular Dynamics International (CDI). And the company's trajectory in the past seven years has placed it, by all measures thus far, in the "success story" category.

 

For one, pharmaceutical companies and others are eagerly buying CDI's first product, iCell Cardiomyocytes, which have the metabolic and electrophysiological properties of pure heart cells, can be grown by the billions and are easily frozen for transport. The company has recently broadened its mission and expects to be offering other kinds of stem-cell-derived products-including nerve and liver cells-soon.

 

Extending Medical Research

 

Moving intellectual property to the marketplace is an important and logical extension of medical research at UW-Madison, says Robert N. Golden, MD, dean of the School of Medicine and Public Health.

 

"Everything we do as a medical school, whether it's patient care, education or research, ultimately aims to elevate the health of individuals and populations," Golden says. "Research is important, but it's even more important when it touches the lives of people by having a positive impact on their health and the health of their communities."

 

The School of Medicine and Public Health has devoted many strategic resources to translational research programs, which aim to quickly move discoveries from the laboratory bench to the clinic bedside, and even further, the community curbside.

 

The Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) is the most visible example.

 

"Commercialization is yet another aspect of our translational research mission," Golden says. "If the National Institutes of Health renews our ICTR grant this fall, as we expect it will, the institute will engage in commercialization of research products even more than in the past."

 

Facilitating Technology Transfer

 

The engine that facilitated much of UW-Madison's transfer of technology for more than 85 years has been the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).

 

"WARF is a huge incentive, stimulating faculty, staff and even students to bring their inventions to market," says Golden, who came to Wisconsin from the University of North Carolina, which also is known for a culture of research commercialization. "WARF was the prototype, and in my opinion, remains the very best when it comes to transforming the intellectual property of university faculty into commercial products."

 

Historically, the bulk of WARF's efforts have been in patenting the discoveries of researchers and licensing their technologies to leading companies in Wisconsin, the United States and worldwide. Indeed, UW faculty members hold more scientific patents than those at any other public university in the country.

 

One high-profile patent is digital subtraction angiography (DSA), which Charles Mistretta, PhD, School of Medicine and Public Health professor of medical physics, created more than two decades ago. DSA, an imaging technique that increases the contrast between blood vessels and surrounding bones and soft tissue, is used in almost every radiology department in the country today. As a result, the DSA patent is one of the largest income earners of all patents issued by WARF.

And that money rewards inventors and comes back to UW-Madison. After distributing investors' royalty shares, WARF gifts the licensing earnings from its patented technologies to the university, typically contributing some $50 million annually to fund additional UW research.

 

Getting a Startup off the Ground

 

Licensed technology may also become the basis of a startup company, at times the most effective way of taking research to a level where its impact can be greatest and return on investment largest.

 

At least 304 startup companies have been created by UW-Madison faculty, staff and students through 2010, according to the INSITE Entrepreneurship Census coordinated by UW's Anne Miner, PhD, distinguished professor of management and human resources.

 

Approximately 30 of the firms have had links to the School of Medicine and Public Health.

 

"Creating a startup is not an easy thing to do," says Allen Dines, assistant director of the UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations and formerly of University-Industry Relations.

 

Three main ingredients are required to get a startup off the ground, he says. First, of course, there's the technology.

 

"You need the scientific capability to do something novel," he says. "Second, you need management talent, somebody who knows how to put the pieces together to get a company going. And faculty don't necessarily know how to do that. Finally, you must have the capital."

 

CDI has been extremely successful in setting up its management team and attracting capital, Dines says. The process began with private donations but quickly accelerated through multiple rounds of funding, to a point where today the company is very well capitalized.

 

Stratatech, which commercializes unique skin substitute products, is also a growing start-up with great potential. The company had its stunning origins in the laboratory of Lynn Allen-Hoffmann, PhD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the School of Medicine and Public Health.

 

In 1996 she and her research team were studying the life span of keratinocytes, the most common form of cells found in the epidermis, or outer layer of skin. To the scientists' amazement, they found that unlike all other cell lines they had studied, one grew continuously in culture, never stopping.

 

"The extraordinary value of this cell line is that it can grow into distinct stratified layers of tissue with the physical strength and biological characteristics of intact human skin," says Allen-Hoffmann.

 

She founded Stratatech in 2000, envisioning a portfolio of products that could be used for treating severe burns, wounds, diabetic ulcers and skin cancers. With steady growth, the company has hit numerous key milestones.

 

StrataGraft, the company's skin subsitute for severe burns, has advanced into human clinical trials, with an intitial safety study completed and a second trial to begin later this year.

 

The company is also developing genetically enhanced tissues that produce elevated levels of antimicrobial factors leading to better natural wound healing. Published research on one of the tissues highlighted its ablity to suppress the level of a common multi-drug-resistant bacterium, eliciting an editorial by independent surgeons hailing it as a potential "paradigm shift in the management of skin pathologies."

 

Stratatech has also made strong additions to its management team and has commercialized a human skin model for in vitro toxicity testing.

 

Medical School Spawns Many Successful Startups

 

Other successful startups with links to the School of Medicine and Public Health have gone on to be publicly traded or acquired by large, well-established firms, bringing significant earnings to shareholders.

 

"Industry has shown an increased interest in acquiring products after they have been proven through successful development by a startup," Dines says. "This also decreases the market for straight licensing of products."

 

The Swiss company Roche acquired the start-ups NimbleGen and Mirus over the past four years, giving the world-class company a presence in Madison. NimbleGen, created by medical genetics professor Frederick Blattner, PhD, and others, produces research tools that help scientists study gene expression and identify DNA aberrations.

 

Mirus, created by Jon Wolff, MD, former School of Medicine and Public Health professor of genetics and pediatrics, and others, focuses on a unique RNA and DNA delivery system that has the potential for treating diseases such as Duchenne's muscular dystrophy.

 

In other major deals:

• Third Wave Technologies, which James Dahlberg, PhD, professor of biomolecular chemistry, helped create in 1993, is now part of Hologic, Inc., a Massachusetts-based women's health firm. Third Wave's tests for human papilloma virus and cystic fibrosis using its gene amplification technology meshed well with Hologic's products.
  
  
• Cellectar, which develops therapies to detect, treat and monitor a wide variety of human cancers, merged with Novelos Therapeutics, Inc. Cellectar founder Jamey Weichert, PhD, a School of Medicine and Public Health professor of radiology, will continue his research on Cellectar's lead drug candidate, which recently received FDA clearance to enter clinical trials.
  
  
• TomoTherapy, a firm with deep roots in the School of Medicine and Public Health, thanks to Thomas "Rock" Mackie, PhD, professor of medical physics and human oncology, has been acquired by Accuray of Sunnyvale, California. TomoTherapy's widely praised radiation therapy system features three-dimensional imaging integrated with the spiral delivery of small beams of radiation that provides exceptional accuracy.
  

Support for Startups

 

School of Medicine and Public Health scientists have to go far to find help deciding at an early stage whether their intellectual property has potential for commercialization. Several programs offer support. Some include:

 

The Medical Innovation Office is a collaboration of the Graduate School, the College of Engineering, the School of Medicine and Public Health and the Morgridge Institute for Research that is partially funded through a Wallace H. Coulter Foundation grant. The office promotes the development of promising medical devices and diagnostic technologies involving collaborations between UW clinicians and biomedical engineers.

 

The WARF Accelerator Program focuses on identifying high-potential assets at an early stage, offering consultation with real-world business experts to evaluate opportunities for innovation and providing critically timed funding for selected projects.

 

The First Look Investor Forum, sponsored by the Office of Corporate Relations, brings together investors and researchers before companies are formed or funding is needed. The goal is to build relationships at an early stage, giving investors a preview of exciting coming attractions and scientists a chance to learn how to interact effectively with investors.

 

At the other end of the pipeline stands University Research Park (URP). The park provides office and laboratory space for more than 126 companies in 37 buildings on its 260 acres three miles west of campus. Itself a "spin-off" of UW-Madison - the land was once used for UW-Madison agricultural research - URP also returns money to the university.

 

Other small clusters of startups are scattered around town - east, west and south - making Madison an increasingly attractive place for biotechnology to flourish. The companies add tangible as well as intangible value.

 

CDI employs 107 people, Stratatech 30. More than 700 people work in high-quality jobs at Accuray-TomoTherapy, Novelos-Cellectar, Hologic-Third Wave, Roche NimbleGen and Roche Madison combined. Many other startups have also contributed to Madison's relatively stable job scene.

 

With state and federal budget austerity likely to be the norm into the foreseeable future, local biotechnology companies can help provide balance.

 

"It's a wonderful secondary benefit when our activities can create jobs, infuse capital and provide more resources in communities," says Golden.

 

Contributions to health must also be recognized.

 

"We know that one of the biggest drivers of good health is economic stability and security," he says.

 

By Dian Land

This article appears in the summer 2011 issue of Quarterly.

Date Published: 08/31/2011