WANTED: NEW BUSINESS PARTNERS FOR UMDNJ

The pairing of university talent and business knowhow has developed breakthrough therapies, devised innovative technologies, ignited start-up companies and made money. In 1980, the federal government made a landmark decision allowing universities to more easily own intellectual property deriving from research underwritten by such federal agencies as the NIH. The result was a spurt of activity in licensing of university technology and the creation of university-based spinoff companies. UMDNJ is pursuing multiple avenues in what is now called "translational" research –taking basic and clinical research findings and developing them into commercially viable treatments and products.

A Business Development Fair sponsored by the University's Office of Patents and Licensing and initiated by Margaret Mary Kozik Richardson, Esq., Director of the Office, was held on April 11 to showcase the technology developed by these companies and provide a forum to discuss potential research collaborations, including clinical trials and continuing education programs.

Among the presenters was a representative from PTC Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in South Plainfield, that has already attracted $60 million in funding to develop its proprietary integrated ribonucleic acid (RNA) biology and RNA chemistry drug-discovery platforms to identify small molecule drugs. RNAs have unique structures that allow small molecules to bind with great selectivity and specificity. The company develops drugs that bind to a single RNA and regulate an aspect of the cell's biology. PTC has drug discovery programs in oncology, infectious diseases, inflammation and genetic disorders. Stuart Peltz, PhD, professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is founder, president and CEO.

Also presenting was Raphael Mannino, PhD, a UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School faculty member whose technology for the oral delivery of a wide array of drugs that normally require injection or cause stomach upset has been licensed to BioDelivery Sciences International, Inc. (BDSI), which went public in April. Mannino and his colleague, Susan Gould-Fogerite, PhD, also a faculty member at the medical school, have spent two decades developing a structure – called a cochleate cylinder – that can bind to cells and penetrate their membranes in order to deliver drug therapies. The "cochleate delivery vehicle" is made from natural products with demonstrated safety and efficacy that are highly stable and inexpensive. BioDelivery Sciences International has exclusive worldwide licenses to 10 issued U.S. patents and foreign counterparts, and two U.S. patent applications.

Companies expressing an interest in UMDNJ's research include Interferon Sciences, Hydromed Sciences, BTG International, Inc., Pfizer Consumer Health, Trade Logistics & Strategies, LLC, Merck & Co., Inc., Adam Spence Corporation, Early Stage Enterprises, Samos Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Strategene, Scimedix Corporation, Silicon Garden Angels & Investors Network, and Apollo Telemedicine.

It's a brave new world for partnerships between academic science and industry. And the potential products of these unions may bring about creative and affordable therapies impossible to imagine just 10 years ago.