A few years ago, nurses Michael Howlett and James Mercer began patenting concepts for catheters that would block the transmission of pathogens into patients' bloodstream -- the cause of infections that cause up to 100,000 preventable deaths a year.
"We're providers, we take cake of patients and we saw a need for a device that would prevent catheter-related infections. We designed a prototype and got a provisional patent, then looked for someone to turn it into a reality," said Howlett, who works with Mercer at Salt Lake City's VA Hospital. "It's hard for a couple little guys to get to the titans of industry."
Instead they went to University of Utah biomedical engineers who developed their ideas into marketable products and fledged a company, Catheter Connections, one of 20 the U. spun off in 2008.
This young company, which doesn't even have an office yet, is a reason the U. now leads the nation in spinning off companies, finally catching No. 1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the nation's premier research centers.
The U. performs well not only in creating companies, but also in filing patents (119), patents awarded (33) and generating revenue from licensing technology ($26.2 million), according to 2008 rankings released Tuesday by the Association of University Technology Managers, or AUTM (pronounced "autumn").
U. officials say the U. has surpassed its Massachusetts rival in fiscal year 2009 with 23 spin-offs, versus MIT's 20.
The process of academic technology transfer is working well across the nation, according to AUTM president Arundeep Pradhan. Such tech transfers are enshrined in federal policy, which ensures academic scientists a piece of the financial reward for inventions they conceive, and have given birth to name-brand firms like Google and Utah's Myriad Genetics.
University research spawned 595 companies nationally in 2008, most of them in the institutions' home states. University start-ups introduced 648 commercial products and executed more than 5,000 licenses, while institutions filed more than 20,000 invention disclosures and 12,000 U.S. patent applications, according to the 2008 survey.
Since 2005, when the U. established its tech commercialization office, the U. has spun off 83 companies that employ 400 people and have attracted $240 million in capitalization, according to Jack Brittain, vice president for technology venture development at the U. All but five of these companies are still alive.
"These are the real deal. We are creating a future in Utah for really good jobs. The average salary is $85,000," Brittain said. "We are using our innovativeness to take charge of our future."
Outside reviewers credit the support the U. provides entrepreneurial faculty to shepherd their ideas to the market place. The school's success in spinning off companies is even more stunning when expressed in terms of the research grants it handles, said Joe Tanous, who leads Oregon State University's technology transfer efforts.
He contends the U. is by far the nation's most successful institution in translating research expenditures into economic growth.
According to data he has compiled, the U. spins off a company for every $15 million in research grants it attracts, while the national average is one company for every $104 million.
Catheter Connections formed after intellectual property lawyer Vicki Farrar, now the company's CEO, introduced Mercer and Howlett's ideas to the U.'s department of biomedical engineering to evaluate their marketability and develop them into commercial products.
The U. further assisted with viability studies, helping secure venture capital and patenting issues.
The stakes are high because hospitals will no longer get Medicaid reimbursement for treating many hospital-acquired infections, she said. Devices that prevent such infections could save a 200-bed hospital $1 million annually, not to mention many lives.
The new company donated the Mercer-Howlett patents to the U., which then licensed them back under terms that helped Catheter Connections flourish, Farrar said. Company officials are nearing FDA approval for a device they hope to have on the market in the coming months.
