UA's tech-transfer arm hits 2015 goals

The University of Arizona says its technology commercialization arm hit all of its goals in its second full fiscal year of operations, including logging more than 200 faculty invention disclosures and forming 12 startup licensee companies.

Tech Launch Arizona (TLA) also topped the prior year’s results in patents filed and issued, exclusive license and option agreements, and license royalties, in the recently ended 2015 fiscal year, the UA said.

The UA created TLA in 2013 by merging three separate functions — technology transfer, or the transfer of university technology to the commercial sector; tech parks; and corporate and business relations — and adding a fourth function, new-venture development.

David Allen, vice president of Tech Launch Arizona, said he’s pleased with the progress and cited the efforts of hundreds of UA inventors, administrators and students, volunteer advisers and service providers to make the UA a “technology commercialization powerhouse.”

The UA said TLA’s successes were a key factor in the university’s recent recognition by the Association of Public Land-grant Universities as an “Innovation and Economic Prosperity University” for its support of economic development. The UA is one of 18 U.S. universities that received the designation this year.

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“As Arizona’s land-grant university, the University of Arizona is absolutely committed to creating improved prospects and enriched lives for the people of our state and the world,” UA President Ann Weaver Hart said in a news release.

TLA plans to release its 2015 annual report and new goals for the coming year sometime in August.

TLA reported the following data for the fiscal year that ended June 30:

• 213 invention disclosures (the formal disclosures by faculty of new inventions); up from 188 in fiscal 2014;
• 35 patents issued (up from 24);
• 99 provisional patents and 89 utility patents filed (up from 92 and 61);
• 45 exclusive license and option agreements (up from 39);
• 12 startup licensee companies formed (up from 11), with a greater percentage suitable for investment;
• More than $2.1 million in revenue from royalties and patent reimbursements for intellectual property (up 25 percent)
• Increased tenancy at the UA Tech Park by five new companies, for a total of 44 companies and organizations;
• Support of 16 companies and 17 workshops reaching 244 technologists and entrepreneurs at the Arizona Center for Innovation.