b'FROM COLOR ADO UNIVERSITIES CONCEPT REINVENT THE TECH TR ANSFER OFFICETO WRITTEN BY JEANNE MCADARA, PH.D. COMMERCIALIZATION:INfrom academic researcher to company founder, and from our current era of bioscience entrepreneurship, its easy to forget that until the 1980s, universitiesdiscovery to successful commercial product.and academic inventors did not own their federally funded discoveriesthe federal government did. The Bayh- CU INNOVATIONS: Dole Act of 1980 gave universities ownership rights overIM THERAPEUTICS promising technologies developed within their halls, as long as they agreed to file patents, pursue licensing partners,IM Therapeutics (IMT; Aurora), is one early example of and share financial benefits with the inventors. Universitythis updated model. A pair of physician-scientists at technology transfer offices deserve significant credit forthe University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campusshepherding a great many extraordinary advances in medicalpediatric endocrinologist Aaron Michels, M.D. and pediatric science, biotechnology, medical devices, and diagnostics in theimmunologist Peter Gottlieb, M.D.founded IMT in 2015. decades since Bayh-Dole. Using a combination of high-throughput computational modeling, rational drug design, and biological screening, the Meanwhile, foundational changes in science, business, culture,company has developed a pipeline of small-molecule drugs and politics have dramatically changed the way innovatorsthat inhibit specific variant of the human leukocyte antigen commercialize their discoveries, but little in their training(HLA) associated with elevated risk of autoimmune disorders. prepares academics for the role of entrepreneur. ColoradoWith a lead candidate in early-stage clinical trials, IMTs goal is techtransfer offices have coevolved along with newto produce orally available drugs to treat Type 1 (juvenile-onset) commercialization models to actively support the transitiondiabetes, celiac disease, and other autoimmune disorders.BIOSCIENCECOLORADO//2020-202121'