swisster - transfer.

This article first appeared on Swisster on June 4, 2008

Zurich’s ETH accelerates technology transfer

Tom Armitage - Zurich

Bringing the products of scientific research to the market can be a difficult job but the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s (ETH) Transfer programme is proving that it can be done successfully. The number of spin-offs emerging from the Zurich-based university’s labs is increasing steadily.

“If you look at the companies spun off in the last years, we can see an increase: in 2003 to 2005 we had about 10 spin offs a year on average. In 2006, there were 16 and last year there were 21. This year we will probably hit 20 again,” said Silvio Bonaccio, head of ETH Transfer, ETH Zurich’s technology transfer office.

The university’s spin-off rate is now comparable with that of venerable U.S. institutions like Stanford or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The EPFL in Lausanne says it has no official list of start-ups that have emerged from its labs but leading computer mouse maker Logitech is among them.

ETH’s Bonaccio says the acceleration in spin-offs is a result of promotion work that the ETH has done internally and also the result of various platforms that have been created to encourage entrepreneurs. These include the Venture business plan competition run in conjunction with management consultants McKinsey.

“We should also not forget the outside environment,” Bonaccio added. “The economy hasn’t done too badly in recent years and that has also given a platform for young start-ups to get out and try it on their own.”

“The increase in start-ups is substantial and it looks like it is sustainable. I wonder what it will look like if the economy starts to go sideways. At the moment it looks okay,” Bonaccio said, who has been with the transfer department since 2000.

“What is important is the spirit of the people and that has increased over the past few years,” he said.

A change in the ETH’s statutes recently incorporated the idea that the university not only serve as a seat of learning but that it should also use the knowledge acquired for the good of society. That means research and business increasingly go hand-in-hand.

“Often inventors show us their research results and we make an analysis to determine whether to file a patent,” said Bonaccio. “Then a year or two later, the people may return and say ‘let’s commercialise that teechnology’. And then the whole process begins.”

One of the most important things is coaching students in the ways of business.

“Some people have an understanding but most of them are very technically oriented and their business know-how is very limited. There are a lot of initiatives to circumvent that problem.”

One such initiative is the CTI Start-up programme, which is run in conjunction with the Commission for Technology and Innovation in Berne, part of the Swiss government, and which unites entrepreneurs with business angels, private investors and incubators, such as Zurich’s Technopark. The programme aims to provide coaching for young entrepreneurs in order to help them progress from project idea, through the seeding stage to start-up and ultimately ramp up of their product.

A shining example of the successes achieved by Zurich’s technology transfer programme is the Swiss biotechnology company GlycArt which was spun out from the ETH in 2000. The firm developed a portfolio of antibody products which proved so attractive to client Roche, that the Basel-based company paid 235 million Swiss francs in cash to buy out the firm in 2005.

“That was an unusual situation that it would sell for such a price just five years after it was set up and without any products on the market but it was a race between different companies to buy it,” said Bonaccio.

Sometimes the ETH takes a small equity stake in a new company in exchange for licences to use technology developed within the confines of the university’s research programme. “When we have identified a company and we have great faith that it will become a successful start-up we negotiate with the company for a little share as a compensation for the licence,” said Bonaccio.

Biotechnology companies remain a specialty of Zurich’s transfer programme, accounting for around 25-30 percent of the overall number of start-ups emerging from the University’s various labs. “There is quite a few IT-related companies, a lot of software as well,” said Bonaccio. “It differs from year-to-year: last year it tended to be more tangible companies that produced things that you could touch.”