University of Hawai'i to create tech companies

By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer

The University of Hawai'i is working with local investors to form several private companies that would exploit technology created by university professors.

Two such corporations have been formed: one around wireless technology created at the UH College of Engineering's Hawai'i Center for Advanced Communications, and the other around biotechnology advances at the UH College of Natural Sciences, said Honolulu investment fund manager Randy Havre, who is helping UH create both companies.

The companies are an attempt by UH to make some of its most promising academic research available for commercial use.

The idea is being pushed by the university's recently reorganized patent office as a way to increase the flow of licensing revenue from patented UH-developed technology.

UH and several key research professors will hold stock in the companies, giving them some control over their intellectual property but also letting them seek venture investments, government loans, scientific grants and tax incentives available only to private firms.

"This is a good structure because it ensures that the university, the professors and the company will share a common interest," said Jonathan Roberts, a licensing executive at the UH Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development.

Electrical engineering professor Magdy Iskander said the wireless technology firm, Wireless Islands, will try to make products based on two areas of UH research.

One is an advanced multiple-frequency antenna and software that can map a building's wireless receptivity based on blueprints.

That company is "very preliminary," without money or employees, Havre said.

But he said the as-yet-unnamed biotech company, based on genetic research, is much further along, with a financial source lined up and a business plan prepared. Havre declined to discuss further details, citing intellectual property concerns.

UH previously has created commercial companies from its professors' research. Havre worked with the university to form biotech firm Neugenesis in 1994, but the project moved to California several years later. UH still owns stock in Neugenesis but hasn't created other companies until now, Roberts said.

With the Office of Technology Transfer under new management, UH has proven far more willing to try new things, Havre said.

"Finally, after all these years, things are moving along," he said. "The university's really getting proactive about putting its intellectual property out there."

The step to form companies is relatively unusual. Most companies that result from academic research agree to a licensing deal with the university.

But some universities in areas with small technology industries and sparse investment options have become company factories, said Keith Mattson, executive director of UH Connections, a group that tries to hook up companies with university researchers.

Mattson cited Yale University in New Haven, Conn., which has invested heavily in biotechnology companies spawned by its medical school and helped create a thriving life-science industry there.

"It's good the university's getting involved in this way," he said. "Where there is not a large, long-standing technology business community, universities can play a more aggressive role in helping these things develop."