News

The Offices of Technology Transfer and Commercialization at UMCP and UMB have joined together to form UM Ventures, which provides unified licensing and patenting services and joint mar­keting to the business community to increase efficiency and productivity.

Under director James L. Hughes, MBA, chief enterprise and economic development officer and vice president at UMB, UM Ventures has laid out the following priorities:

• Strengthen and integrate the tech transfer offices at UMB and UMCP
• Promote activities and successes of the UM Ventures effort
• Create a single point of entry for business
• Streamline processes to enhance tech transfer and industry collaboration
• Develop a cohesive plan to nurture startup companies
• Create an industry liaison office in Montgomery County

UM Ventures has appointed seven professionals with entrepreneurial experience as “site miners” and “entrepreneurs in residence” (EIRs) to reach out to the faculty and laboratories on both campuses to find and cultivate opportunities to bring discoveries forward into the commercial domain. With the assistance of the site miners and EIRs, UM Ventures is creating interdisciplinary teams of clinicians, engineers, lawyers, and business experts to move the best technologies aggressively into the marketplace.

UM Ventures’ highlights include:

Startups (focus—first 24 months after licensing a technology)

• Diagnostic anSERS Inc., founded by two UMCP PhD students, wins $175,000 in awards
• Gliknik, Inc., a UMB startup, raises $4.9 million; phase 2 clinical trials under way
• Immotions Medical, Inc., a UMB startup, leaves Massachusetts to relocate to the BioPark at UMB
• OmniSpeech, LLC, a UMCP startup, gains more than $2.8 million in funding
• Remedy Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a UMB startup, raises $3.7 million; begins phase 2 clinical trial
• Tokai Pharmaceuticals, a UMB licensee, raises $23 million; begins phase 2 clinical trial
• Remedium Technologies, based on technology jointly owned by UMB and UMCP, won a $500,000 Phase 2 SBIR grant

Translational Research

• $2 million NIH grant won by School of Engineering (UMCP) and School of Medicine (UMB) to develop a robot to assist with neurosurgery
• $15 million Department of Defense contract won by Paragon Bioservices and School of Medicine
• Lockheed Martin and UMCP developing a partnership

UM Ventures includes three other partners: MTech, the Dingman Center, and the Small Business Technology Development Centers Program. The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business (UMCP) is helping students create companies. The Maryland Small Business and Technology Development Center, a partnership between UMCP and the U.S. Small Business Administration, is assisting startup companies in Maryland not affiliated with the two universities.

Contact the following for more information:

James L. Hughes, MBA, Director, Chief Enterprise and Economic Development Officer, Vice President, UMB

University of Maryland, College Park Division of Research

University of Maryland, Baltimore Office of Research and Development

Official UM Ventures website.

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