MPO Summit: Universities’ Role in Tech Transfer

“Utah is known for many things: Its national parks and incredible landscape, the greatest snow on earth and its salty sea, to name several,” a 2013 article on UtahPolicy.com boasted. “But dig a little deeper and you’ll find that Utah is increasingly recognized for its robust life science industry.”

Indeed, the state will surprise you. Twice in a row, MPO has held its Summit in the Beehive State—so nicknamed for its industry and perseverance—and the Salt Lake City-Park City area reveals a vibrant network of medtech industry players. Utah’s life sciences industry boasts more than 26,800 employees, which makes the state a leader for life sciences businesses per capita, according to the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. Across the four major subsectors—medical devices and equipment; drugs and pharmaceuticals; research, testing and medical labs; and biomedical distribution—Utah has at least a 20 percent higher level of industry concentration than is found nationally for those subsectors. And each of those subsectors is growing faster in Utah than in the rest of the country.

A major part of any city’s industry is the local university, which typically funnels experts into whatever the major field happens to be regionally. The University of Utah has been doing more than its part to contribute human resources and talent to the local life sciences industry, and prominent companies such as Nelson Laboratories (headquartered in Salt Lake City) and Becton Dickinson and Company (offices in Sandy, Utah) do their part to employ and retain local talent.

“Our students are really the pipeline for human capital to help grow the region in this industry, and we need to tailor our resources to meet your needs,” John Langell, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, MBA, surgeon, assistant professor and executive director of the Center for Medical Innovation at the University of Utah told attendees at MPO Summit 2015. “We want to create a model where we’re part of the process.”

The university is achieving this by a series of programs to not only nurture the next employees of the life sciences industry, but also to provide resources for the life sciences industry within the ivory tower.  For instance, the U provides a “deep dive” space at its Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, where anyone can come in and collaborate with engineers, nurses and physicians outside their company to foster ideas. The school has also launched a new intellectual property law clinic run by its S.J. Quinney College of Law, which is aimed at helping local industry access expertise regarding IP and the pitfalls that surround medtech IP in particular. In addition, the University of Utah had a Stanford University team come in and inspect its business program. Based on their feedback, the University of Utah developed a life sciences MBA program, an 18-credit unit dedicated to the unique aspects of biotechnology, to create able life sciences managerial leaders.

In the past three years, the University of Utah has started up 32 companies, created 152 innovations, 86 patents, graduated more than 700 students. According Langell, the school’s return on investment in life sciences-targeted programs has been 285 percent—and that’s not even measuring funding obtained by companies and jobs created.

“We see Utah as playing a substantial role in biotech, and we would like to play substantial role in making Utah a global biotech leader,” Langell said. “As such, trans-disciplinary collaboration is key. Through this we can overcome barriers and silos and make disruptive solutions instead of incremental changes that are outpaced by competitors.”