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2001 law is beginning to pay dividends for seventh most active state
By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Wednesday, Apr 02, 2008
Ohio universities, hospitals and research institutions launched 23 startup companies in 2006, making it the seventh most active state in the country, according to a new survey released by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM.)
It's a sign that a 2001 Ohio law is beginning to pay off, said Ken Preston, executive director of the University of Akron Research Foundation.
The culture of economic development began to change when the state granted exceptions to a conflict-of-interest rule, allowing faculty members to own stock in companies that licensed faculty members' inventions from their university.
''Across the state, we saw an immediate jump in university startups,'' Preston said. UA has spun off more than 20 companies in the last six years, he said.
AUTM annually tracks data including research expenditures, patent awards and licensing income.
The most recent report compiled information from 189 institutions for fiscal year 2006.
While California, Massachusetts and New York alternated the top spots in most categories, Ohio ranked high in several key metrics.
• Ohio spent $1.6 billion on research. That's the ninth-high
est expenditure of any state.
• The state is one of the most active patent-producing areas in the country. Research institutions here applied for 425 patents in 2006 (ranking ninth) and received 97 patents (ranking 11th.)
• Income earned from licenses was a collective $26 million, a ranking of 14th.
Ohio was considered slow to join the move from an industrial economy to a knowledge-based one, but its placement in the study shows how ''in short time, we have risen to be one of the top states in the country,'' said Baiju Shah, president of BioEnterprise.
His organization works to accelerate growth of Northeast Ohio bioscience companies, many of which were spun off through university research efforts.
There has been an ''explosion'' of medical and technological advancements originating from universities, accounting for much of the economic growth over the past two decades, Shah said.
Startups from universities are among the fastest-growing companies today, in part because they are successful in attracting venture capital.
Investors flock to them because ''they are working on fundamentally transformative things,'' Shah said. Universities aren't focused on incremental changes, but rather big problems that need solved, big needs that are unmet, and ''things that create new economic niches.''
Shah also credited the state's Third Frontier program, which has awarded millions in grants to universities with the potential to create companies that could provide jobs and wealth.
Preston said the number of university startup companies will continue to grow.
''It's becoming such a way of thought'' for universities to be engines of economic development, Preston said, since startups have become the largest source of job creation.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.
Ohio universities, hospitals and research institutions launched 23 startup companies in 2006, making it the seventh most active state in the country, according to a new survey released by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM.)
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