UC startups turn research into reality
April 23, 2010 •
UC inventions last year spurred 47 new startup companies — a notable number considering the economic recession and reluctance of investors to back technologies or products that are only in their infant development.
UC campuses, year after year, increase their portfolio of inventions and patents and start dozens of companies that move discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace. This technology transfer is a measure of the quality and impact of UC research, said Steven Beckwith, UC vice president for research and graduate studies, when he presented the Accountability Sub-Report on the UC Research Enterprise to the Regents in January.
Spinoff or startup companies are indeed a UC tradition. Since 1976, 461 startup companies have been formed with UC inventions, and they have played an important role in California’s economy. The companies range from the UCSF-rooted biotechnology giant Genentech and UC Berkeley-born Amyris, which first engineered microbes to produce anti-malarial drugs and now is creating renewable fuels. Read more at UC’s newsroom.
