Annual Report 2011

From The Director  

Michael Batalia 

Welcome to our new annual report! For those of you who are unfamiliar with our charge, the Office of Technology Asset Management (OTAM) is responsible for developing, protecting and commercializing intellectual property derived from the research programs of Wake Forest School of Medicine and Wake Forest University. OTAM has worked diligently over the last four quarters to refine our process, improve our communications, and extend our outreach. This new annual report summarizes many of these efforts, and provides examples of how Wake Forest is moving science out of the laboratory and into the marketplace. 

This mission is important for many reasons. First, now more than ever there is a need for universities to anchor and support the economic development of their surrounding community and region. OTAM is a front-line resource dedicated to promoting the Wake Forest research enterprise, and we are intimately involved with the translation of laboratory research into the marketplace as evidenced by almost $400 million in revenue flowing to Wake Forest, our inventors and the Triad area over the past 5 years. OTAM works closely with our sister organizations under the Wake Forest umbrella as well as our corporate and community partners. Collectively, our goal is to provide the best environment for our faculty and administration to transform their ideas into reality as the means to benefit our patients and our citizens.  

Second, a robust technology transfer and commercialization program is important for the attraction and retention of best-of-class research faculty. It has become an expectation from the next generation of researchers that they have access to translational pathways for their basic research programs. As you can see from the growth in patent applications, the faculty is taking advantage of the opportunity. In addition, many of the interdisciplinary and translational science grants available in the current competitive funding cycle have requirements which encourage the researcher and university to outline a plan of commercialization in order for the grant application to be viable and competitive. OTAM is a key partner to support our faculty in these applications.  

Over the last fiscal year we have worked with over 80 faculty members with approximately 43% being first time customers. This report is just a snapshot of all the commercialization efforts that evolve over the year. There are just too many projects and developments to be included in one report. We hope you enjoy reviewing the efforts outlined here, and we look forward to working with you in fiscal year 2012!