What are the Purposes of Technology Transfer and Commercialization?

Many new scientists have some questions- Why should I commercialize? What are the benefits of commercialization? Why should I work with your office?

So, I want to do so these are you know the top four reasons why scientists should think about commercialization.

1. Social Benefits

The first one obviously is the most obvious one which is societal benefits. you want your research to have a real impact on the world and for that commercialization is probably one of the main ways that you can do it.

2. Economic Growth

When we commercialize something that leads to licensing agreements, a startup company. So here's the potential to generate revenue and create jobs through it if you start a company. The government in general is also now focusing a lot on commercialization as a way as a metric to measure how scientists are performing.

3. Industry Partnerships

This is one way to gain more funding for your lab.

Additional sources of ideas- When you interact with other scientists, you can get ideas on how to conduct research but when you interact with industry scientists, the perspectives are different, they're looking for is different. It can be a meeting of minds where you can generate new ideas.

They can also be a good way to get some additional government grants because many of the grants now do require an industry partner. So that's one of the things that you can gain from an industry partnership.

4. Recruitment & Retention

Then the last one is a little intangible but it's really important if your institution is Pro-commercialization and does come out with a number of technologies that make it to the market. It positions your institution as the place to go for new scientists. It's a great recruitment tool. It's a great way to retain people and bright minds. That's one of the other reasons why commercialization is important.

A Success Story for Commercialization

There was KYMRIAH which was a success story for commercialization from an academic lab to industry.

Emily Whitehead was a patient in 2010, was 5 years old when did a clinical trial, so now fast-forward to 2017 and that's when the FDA approved this particular CAR-T therapy(CTL019) for patients in the US. It's now approved in Europe as well as in Canada and it's a product that Novartis has. The whole clinical trial was done by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Novartis was done in collaboration. Now Novartis has this product on the market for these patients. So this is the whole thing commercialization, started way back in 2010 maybe before that actually when the researchers in Philadelphia were developing this therapy in their labs, led to the clinical trial in 2010 and then further advancement into a product that now Novartis has for patients.