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8 integrated education WhErE ScIENcE aNd BUSINESS MEEt A new UO program is leveraging the success and expertise of the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship to bring more universitydeveloped technologies to market. to see the success that can result from teaming scientific creativity with business brainpower, look no further than UO Assistant Professor of Biology Eric Johnson and his startup company, Floragenex. The company was founded on the molecular biologist’s discoveries in the area of genetic screening, but the technology’s most lucrative uses remained unclear until a team of Lundquist College of Business M.B.A. students worked with Johnson to identify them. Now two years old, Floragenex is focused on agricultural applications such as helping landscape nurseries get new plants to market faster. Johnson’s startup, cofounded with Lundquist College alumnus Nate Lillegard, M.B.A. ’06, is just one example of what a newly expanded and state-backed interdisciplinary program will do to bring university-developed technologies to the marketplace. Since 2002, UO has been teaming scientific discoveries with business school acumen to create entrepreneurial opportunity through the Technology Entrepreneurship Program (TEP), the vehicle that drove the creation of Floragenex and two other companies. But TEP was just the first step in what is now a much bigger and longer-lasting endeavor called the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program (IEP), one that represents Oregon’s best hope yet for showing stranded technologies a clear path from campus to Main Street. Just as Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship took the lead on administering TEP, it is also managing IEP in close collaboration with UO School of Law, College of Arts and Sciences, Office of Technology Transfer, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. Likewise, Don Upson, the center’s New Venture Planning Coordinator and Technology Entrepreneurship Program Coordinator, will serve as the college’s operational liaison for IEP (see related article on page 15). Underpinning the new IEP is a $14.5 million Venture Development Fund established by the Oregon State Legislature. It enables private investors
Floragenex, a company started by UO Assistant Professor of Biology Eric Johnson (left) and Nate Lillegard, M.B.A. ’06 (right), is an example of how the interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program brings new technologies to the marketplace. contributing to any of the state’s public universities to receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits worth up to 60 percent of their total donation when the gifts provide seed funding to commercialize university-developed innovations. This funding has been supplemented by $434,000 in National Science Foundation funding, recently matched with $41,000 from the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute. Thomas C. Steward Distinguished Professor and Charles H. Lundquist Professor of Entrepreneurial Management Alan Meyer was instrumental in helping to secure these supplemental funds (see http://lcb.uoregon.edu/news/ news.php?issue=100107&story=nsf). While technology development is the main goal of IEP, education by no means plays second fiddle. In fact, students form the bridge between the “innovation” and the “entrepreneurship.” When teams of students evaluate the commercial potential of a university-owned discovery, participants may come from the M.B.A. program, the law school, or any College of Arts and Sciences graduate program. By working with faculty to develop a business plan and sell it to would-be funders, these students get a true taste of what it takes to start a business. Researchers and their universities, meanwhile, stand to gain compensation for the marketable ideas developed in their labs and classrooms. IEP-formed companies also earn the chance to vie for additional Venture Development Fund monies as they grow. State legislators supported the creation of IEP, recognizing that universities need revenue sources and Oregon needs jobs—especially the family-wage jobs that come from technology-based entrepreneurship. In their eyes, any revenue downside in allowing tax credits is more than offset by revenue potential. UO Vice President for Research Rich Linton explains it like this: “To the extent we can train more people to think entrepreneurially, help faculty bring research findings to market, and encourage companies that are commercializing UO technology to succeed through some strategic granting, in all of these ways, we will have improved the economic outlook for the State of Oregon.” 9
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