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Capitalizing on good ideas

Thursday, November 22, 2001

By Pamela Gaynor, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

For all its prowess in the world of federally funded research, the University of Pittsburgh has been behind the business development curve.

Although it is among the top 10 magnets for research dollars from the National Institutes of Health, for example, it doesn't rank among the top 25 generators of commercial licenses for new technology.

Carolyn Green is among a network of people who hope to change that.

Green was hired in January to direct the Limbach Entrepreneurial Center, an organization recently endowed to help scientists at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute recognize commercial opportunities inherent in their research.

To help accomplish that, the center is running a bio-entrepreneur's forum, in which entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and others involved with taking discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace share their knowledge and experience.

In addition, the center sponsors a mini-MBA program to give researchers a background in business.

If all goes well, the programs will "encourage them to observe the market space around their science so they are quick to recognize opportunities," Green said.

Limbach is asking scientists at the cancer institute to keep a book on their potentially patentable discoveries in documents that give a plain English explanation of where they might fit in the booming market for biomedical innovations. One goal is to make sure no potential commercial discoveries appear in scientific journals before the university has had the opportunity to secure patents.

Although some scientists "aren't thrilled with the commercialization efforts" and would just as soon publish, Green said doing so jeopardized the possibility that their discoveries can "be made available to the masses" in the form of beneficial therapies. That's because publication can jeopardize the potential to patent a discovery. Without a patent, there is likely to be no payoff from developing commercial products.

Green will be keeping an eye on opportunities too. As promising research comes to her attention, she'll be familiarizing herself with the science behind it and exploring potential markets for patentable discoveries.

The information gathering is designed to help scientists "sell their ideas" to Pitt's office of technology management, the organization within the university that decides which patents to pursue.

Although Green wasn't originally trained to sell, she picked up the knack long before becoming the Limbach center's business coach.

A Pitt graduate who majored in chemistry with minors in math and physics, she taught for a few years at a small private school but realized, after the birth of her first child, that she'd have to shift careers because she "couldn't afford day care."

A friend at Algor Inc., a local developer of engineering software, "asked me if I thought I could sell."

Green gave it a try. It wasn't long before her clients included major automakers and, "I was breaking sales quotas and making lots of money."

Five years later, she joined AEA Technology Engineering Software Inc., a much larger British firm, as manager of North American marketing. Shortly afterward, AEA went public and the rewards of the initial public offering gave her "the bug" to go to a promising technology start-up so she could be better positioned to benefit from an IPO.

That was the impetus for her move to Mobot Inc. in 1999, a fledgling Strip District company spun off of Redzone Robotics.

Hired as vice president of sales, Green was promoted to chief executive within months. The company's core product -- a robot that can mingle among people without causing accidents and connect them to the Internet -- was originally targeted at museums looking for a novel way to provide information to patrons.

Green said she saw far more potential and built a business plan that would have targeted retailers and others who now depend on computer kiosks to provide customers with an Internet-based information source.

By late last year, however, the dot.com bust left lots of fledgling technology companies without eager financial backers. Mobot was unable to raise the money it needed to pursue its plans, though it continues in operation.

Restless to move into the technology to market, she joined the Limbach center.

Green aims to help move two discoveries from UPCI to the marketplace within the next year.

One already patented innovation is a peptide that attaches itself to blood vessels that feed cancerous growths. Among other things, the peptide could be used to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to a tumor, she said.

"This is a true platform technology that we would love to see form its own business," she said.