Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation unit of Cambridge University, has announced the institution could earn up to £10.7m ($17.6m) from the $95m sale of medtech BlueGnome to US biotech Illumina.
The university has already made £7.7m from the deal, but another £3m could be earned if milestones are met by BlueGnome. The proceeds from the deal will be returned to Cambridge’s seed funds, which will be used to support future spin-out firms.
The windfall comes after the launch of the £50m Cambridge Innovation Capital last year, and a record year for Cambridge Enterprise in terms of investment. The company backed Cambridge firms last year with £2.27m in university venture capital.
Tony Raven, chief executive of Cambridge Enterprise, said: “Too often, promising young companies fail to reach their full potential because the financial resources to help them get there simply don’t exist. But with the launch of CIC, the extraordinary realisation from the sale of BlueGnome and UCEF, the university can now support its spin-outs better and for much longer than we could before.”
