UW-Madison, WARF rank third in 2004 license income

Driven by the discovery of promising new drugs, agricultural products and biotechnologies, UW–Madison and its technology transfer arm, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, generated more than $47.5 million in licensing revenues last year.

UW–Madison and WARF ranked third in the country, in terms of the value of inventions created by faculty members, according to a report released this week by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM).

The value is determined by the amount of royalties and other income generated by inventions. UW–Madison and WARF ranked third in terms of gross license income for 2004, behind the University of California System, which includes 10 campuses, and New York University. WARF signed more than 200 new license deals in 2004 and filed more than 300 new patent applications.

“One reason for our success is that we work with faculty at the best research university in the country,” says Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of WARF. “As the UW–Madison continues to raise the bar in terms of the quality and quantity of its research, we benefit by the amount of new technology we can transfer to industry.”

Gulbrandsen estimates that more than $1 billion in products based on UW–Madison research was sold last year under license from WARF. The foundation manages more than 940 active license agreements with companies around the world.

“Our mission is two-fold: to bring new inventions out of the labs for the benefit of society and to support further research,” says Gulbrandsen. “We’re happy with this ranking because it indicates that we’re achieving our goals.”

A total of 164 institutions participated in the annual survey conducted by AUTM, including more than 90 percent of the nation’s top research institutions. The report shows a direct correlation between the amount of money an institution spends on research and the amount of money generated by commercialization activities. In 2004, UW–Madison spent more than $760 million on research.

WARF is a private, nonprofit organization that patents discoveries made by UW–Madison inventors and licenses those technologies to companies for commercialization. Each year, WARF returns its gross licensing revenues to the UW–Madison in the form of an annual grant, which the university uses to support further scientific research. Last year, the gift totaled $55 million.

AUTM’s annual ranking of U.S. university technology transfer offices is considered to be the most comprehensive survey of its kind. Each year, the international association of technology managers collects data on the licensing activities of its constituency to track trends and to document the public benefit and economic impact of technology transfer.