FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INDIANAPOLIS — Inventions discovered and developed within the Indiana University campus system will be marketed this week to an international audience of business development executives from companies in the pharmaceutical, diagnostic and health care industries.
David Wilhite, Jennifer Finefield and Katherine Moynihan of Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. are marketing inventions that are available for further development or commercialization during the Licensing Executives Society’s 2016 Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Wilhite, director of technology commercialization, said business development executives have scheduled several meetings to talk about the inventions.
“These meetings can either begin or build upon relationships with executives throughout the industry,” he said. “By better understanding what industry needs, we can more successfully share IU inventions that address their challenges.”
Some IU-discovered inventions that will be marketed during the meeting include:
- Immunotherapy for acute leukemia created by Dr. Sophie Paczesny, IU School of Medicine.
- Predictive markers for diabetes created by Dr. Raghu G. Mirmira, IU School of Medicine.
- An RNAi-based larvacide for mosquitoes created by Molly Duman Scheel, IU School of Medicine-South Bend.
- A therapeutic for polycystic kidney disease created by Bonnie Blazer-Yost, School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
Finefield, senior technology manager, said IU researchers across all academic disciplines are inventing new products and processes that can impact people’s lives.
“These inventors are doing more than conducting research for the sake of research. They are addressing the needs of people and industry around the world,” she said. “Over the last two years, IURTC has received more than 350 invention disclosures from IU researchers, which shows they want their discoveries to be developed further and then delivered to the market.”
Moynihan said IURTC had a strong fiscal year July 1, 2015, through June 30, 2016.
“During that year, IURTC executed 46 licensing agreements, which represents an 84 percent increase over the previous year’s totals,” she said. “We were issued a record 53 patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and 112 global patents, for a total of 165. IURTC also generated $7.03 million in revenue in that time.”
About Indiana University Research and Technology Corp.
IURTC is a not-for-profit corporation tasked with the protecting and commercializing of technology emanating from innovations by IU researchers. Since 1997, IU research has generated more than 2,700 inventions resulting in more than 4,100 global patent applications being filed by IURTC. These discoveries have generated more than $135 million in licensing and royalty income, including more than $112 million in funding for IU departments, labs and inventors.