Selling research may be key
By Sean Hao
Advertiser Staff Writer
Academics think of the industrial world as tainted, but to secure funding for their universities they must embrace the idea of generating cash from research, according to Ted Stanley, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Utah, who will address a venture capital conference in Maui this week.
Stanley, co-founder of a drug delivery company that later sold for $450 million, says universities must cooperate more with industry and venture capitalists to generate income for their operations.
Stanley
Stanley will give the keynote address on Thursday at the sixth annual Wayne Brown Institute Investors Choice Venture Capital Conference, which will be at the Wailea Marriott on Maui. His firsthand experience includes co-founding Anesta Corp. in 1985, which in 2000 was acquired by West Chester, Pa.-based Cephalon Inc. in a deal valued at about $450 million.
Stanley recently shared the following tips to help Hawai'i's efforts to build a biotech hub around the University of Hawai'i's planned $150 million medical center in Kaka'ako.
Q. What do you plan to talk about on Maui?
A. Using myself as an example and what I've learned over the last 20 years now, I'm going to talk about the university, industrial, academic, investment community cooperative or team approach. For this to work best, each of these players has to share the risk and has to share the reward. Each of these components of a successful outcome have acted pretty independently until now.
I think there needs to be more communication between the university and the venture community in particular because these people have to work together to identify the individuals — because it's the individuals that have the great ideas — and convince them to become entrepreneurs. It's important that there be some major-league mentoring and hand-holding at lots of points.
Q. What are some of the institutional challenges to fostering a closer relationship with the private sector?
A. The problem is academia and academics think of the industrial world as tainted and sinful and wrong and immoral, and the classical academic thought processes (favor) pure academic research — the purest form is government-sponsored and everything else is kind of dirty.
What: Wayne Brown Institute Investors Choice Venture Capital Conference Where: Wailea Marriott on Maui When: Wednesday and Thursday Fee: The investor registration fee for the conference is $395. The fee for the Thursday lunch with Ted Stanley is $35. Register: by Tuesday by calling (801) 595-1141.
There are researchers who have ideas that are less heavy science but often result in potentially very useful commercial products with lots of financial upside. Many times, these people don't even know that or ... they look at it as such an incredible mountain to climb that it's not worth climbing. There are these mental mindsets that exist that have to be worked on.
Meeting on Maui
Q. How important is it for universities to embrace the idea of generating cash from research?
A. In my opinion, it's the most important element of future revenues for universities. The government's funding is going to dry up. Clinical funding is very tight these days. You're not going to get successes by taking industry's money, because big industry is looking out for big industry. You may get something, but that's not where it is.
The key here is identifying the individuals within the university and their wonderful ideas and taking care of them in a way that lets them grow and their ideas grow, and the companies that will come out of this.
Q. What advice do you have for an educator or researcher looking to commercialize an idea?
A. The problem with scientists is they think they know business, so one of the big messages is try to become associated with a professional business person who has had small-company experience and big-company experience and knows the difference. The academic that doesn't have the business experience or business portfolio he really needs to hook up with someone who does.
Some academics have an appropriate sense and become business people themselves, but because their education is generally not in that area, I think that is a more risky approach. So one of the important things an academic has to realize is that there can be other people who can be very good for them and to be willing to share in this.
You have to be humble about this and realize that you know one area very well, maybe, but there are lots of other areas that you don't know anything about and you've got to have others around to assist you in this.
Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8093.
