The University Landscape. Where are we now? – The Bad News Global financial crisis Most state...

The University Landscape

Where are we now? – The Bad News

• Global financial crisis• Most state budgets in trouble• Venture capital pulling back• Payer mix deteriorating at academic hospitals

Where are we now? – The Good News

• Greater supply of talent• Research grants up• Advances in science continue• Pres. Obama promises to investment 3 % of GDP

in R&D• “Millennial” generation has greater commitment

to creativity and service

So…• Universities need to do more to help existing and

young faculty members succeed• Creativity and service of students’ mentality needs

to be nurtured• “Soft money” no longer bad• Translational medicine will be more important to

government, less to industry• Central university offices will have less power,

funding agencies will have more

Research at Carolina

Discovery. Creating knowledge that improves our understanding of the causes and course of cancer.

Innovation. Using that new knowledge to develop new and better ways to prevent, find, and treat cancer.

Delivery. Applying advances to improve cancer care, screening, and prevention across the state.

Pharmaceutical Pipeline

Entrepreneurial Thinking

• Committed to an idea rather than a process

• Go where the problems are, not where the solutions are

• Accept cake mixes instead of cakes

• Are not easily infected with the “responsibility virus” (Roger Martin)

Cultivating an Institutional Mindset

• Common good over face-saving and territory

• Aided by diverse decision-making teams

• Inoculated against the responsibility virus

• Identify people to move up in the organization by whether they can work between the silos

Barriers to tech transfer

• Ideological opposition

• Fear of conflicts

• Insufficient resourcing of TTO’s

• Confused incentives for TTO’s

• CEOs chasing gold

Why tech transfer is OK

• We don’t want everyone to do it

• The financial risks are so high that it doesn’t skew incentives

• Ideological opposition has waned (there is still some)

Conflict management

• Administrators and university attorneys understand the area now

• We have good processes for conflict disclosure and management

Paying for TTO’s

• Can’t charge grants like NMR

• Competes with academics for continuing funding

• Still a huge problem

Incenting TTO’s

• Are we looking for patent revenue, licenses done, faculty satisfaction, gifts from successful faculty and entrepreneurs, others?

• We don’t have a good way to drive performance

Pharmaceutical Pipeline

There’s no gold

• Every Pres/Chancellor wants to be NYU, Emory, or Northwestern

• Takes too much luck

Brad Dexter, The Magnificent Seven

Other barriers to company formation

• Supply of management talent in RTP is still thin

• State is keen on keeping companies in NC, not always a good idea

• A lot of successful companies start with founder’s technology and make it with something else – we haven’t seen as much of that

Where are we at Carolina?

• There is a ton of research going on

• The chancellor is realistic about revenue

• We have no good model to pay for TT

• OTD is very centralized but becoming less so

• Need to focus on filling pipeline