Patents Awarded to Pitt Innovators Rise 72 Percent

A tiny sensor composed of carbon nanotubes that will alert asthma suffers to impending attacks. Training materials for educators that are changing classrooms around the country. Those are just two of the innovations highlighted in the Pitt Office of Technology Management’s 2008 Annual Report.

A tiny sensor composed of carbon nanotubes that will alert asthma sufferers to impending attacks. Training materials for educators that are changing classrooms around the country. These are just some of the innovations highlighted in the University of Pittsburgh Office of Technology Management (OTM) 2008 Annual Report.

“Innovation commercialization activity at Pitt has continued at a brisk, healthy pace, fueled in part by increased education and awareness efforts, cultural shifts, strides in customer service, and the more than $642 million in research funding received last year by the University,” said Marc S. Malandro, associate vice chancellor for technology management and commercialization at Pitt. “The results of our unique collaboration with Pitt innovators shows that, once again, University faculty, staff, and students are contributing significantly to the betterment of humankind through both their innovations and their participation in the commercialization process.”

Last year, according to Malandro, more than 400 Pitt innovators participated in some part of the commercialization process through the OTM and its affiliate, the Office of Enterprise Development, Health Sciences (OED).

As the hub of commercialization activity at Pitt, the OTM works with innovators to bring their ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace. Among the highlights in this year’s report, which details advances by the OTM and the OED, are a 72 percent increase in U.S. patents awarded to Pitt innovators, from 21 in fiscal year 2007 to 36 in FY 2008, and a nearly $2 million increase in revenue generated from licensed and optioned innovations, from $7.13 million in FY 2007 to $9.09 million in FY 2008.

Patent applications increased as well, to 100 in FY 2008, up from 95 in FY 2007, and more than double the number just five years ago, 49.

Three new start-up companies were spun off of Pitt innovations in FY 2008, bringing the total number of startups created since 2003 to 42. Cardiorobotics, Inc., cofounded by Pitt professor of surgery Marco Zenati, is developing highly articulated robotic probes designed for use in minimally invasive surgeries. EPR-Technologies, Inc., is using newly developed medical procedures involving emergency hypothermia to put trauma victims in a temporary state of suspended animation until appropriate treatment can be obtained. EPR (Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation) uses a process and equipment developed by Patrick Kochanek, Xianren Wu, and William Stezoski in Pitt’s Department of Critical Care Medicine and Samuel Tisherman in Pitt’s Department of Surgery. Prevencio, LLC, was created to use a series of protein signatures to discover signs of vascular disease. The process was developed by William LaFramboise in Pitt’s Department of Pathology and Oscar Marroquin, Dennis McNamara, and Suresh Mulukutla in Pitt’s Department of Medicine.

A complete PDF copy of OTM’s 2008 Annual Report is available at www.otm.pitt.edu.