Global University Venturing

GuideWell Mutual, Blue Shield California and existing backer Premera Blue Cross all invested in the healthcare prediction platform developer based on Stanford research.

The T-Cell therapy developer, based on research at Baylor College of Medicine, has received funding in a Gilead Sciences-backed series B round led by Fidelity Management and Research.

Pixie Dust Technologies, which promotes university-derived technologies from Japan, has received $34.7m in a round that included KDDI, Kansai Electric Power, NEC, Toppan, Dai-ichi Life and Dentsu.

The intermediary close of PSL's deep tech-oriented fund comes after additional contributions from the EIF, Bpifrance and Vilmorin & Cie.

Cambridge Innovation Capital has celebrated an exit as Bicycle Therapeutics successfully lists in the US.

University of Calgary-born Parvus Therapeutics has inked an $800m deal with Genentech to develop and commercialise treatments for autoimmune diseases.

Koenraad Debackere, managing director, KU Leuven Research and Development, and chairman, Gemma Frisius Fund has received the GUV Lifetime Achievement Award 2019

Put in the driving seat of Oxford University Innovation’s new social enterprise campaign, Mark Mann – this year’s Personality of the Year – surely has one of the most fascinating jobs in academic tech transfer.

With hundreds of university venture funds, internal commercialisation vehicles and third-party firms the reality in today’s innovation ecosystem, selecting the nominees and the winner for Investment Unit of the Year is increasingly challenging.

After a year of countless exits in the ecosystem, many among the most significant yet – so much so that five nominees were not enough to recognise them all – the Award for Exit of the Year was one of the most difficult to determine.

With the growing focus on food sustainability, University of California (UC) Santa Barbara-founded food preservative developer Apeel Science is a particularly apt selection for the Technology of the Year award.