The result is a new record for University of Pittsburgh and includes two businesses delivering surgical apparatus and one developing a poisoning antibody.
University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) produced a record 23 spinouts during the 2018 fiscal year, up from 15 and 13 companies in 2017 and 2016 respectively, the university said on Wednesday.
Pittsburgh’s commercialisation hub, Innovation Institute, counted 363 invention disclosures over the period, up from 329 during fiscal year 2017. The university secured 98 patents, slightly down on the record of 102 reported last year.
The number of licence and option agreements also hit a new high of 162 from the previous record of 146 in 2017.
Pitt put the results down to a campus-wide commitment to the university’s innovation and impactful research goals.
Evan Facher, vice-chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship at Pittsburgh and director of Innovation Institute, said: “Pitt faculty and students are constantly pushing the boundaries of discovery across multiple disciplines.
“The positive trajectory of these metrics reflects the policies and programs that have been developed over the past four-plus years since the creation of the Innovation Institute to inspire and enable the commercial translation of those discoveries so that they can make an impact on society.”
The 23 spinouts include disposable surgical retractor developer Atlas MedTech, clinical training simulator maker Lumis and poisoning antidote company Globin Solutions.
Globin secured $5m in a May 2018 series A round led by Tus-S&T Service Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tsinghua University’s enterprise arm, TusHoldings, with participation from UMPC Enterprises, the investment arm of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Atlas MedTech has so far obtained almost $300,000 from sources including angel investor Joe Marcanio, an entrepreneur-in-residence at Innovation Institute, as well as government-owned research agency National Science Foundation’s I-Corp program.
Lumis received initial funding and mentoring from Coulter Translational Partners II, a commercialisation program administered by Pittsburgh’s Department of Bioengineering in partnership with its School of Medicine and Innovation Institute.
