Launched in 1998, the Emergent Technologies fund was initially met with scepticism.

Emergent Technologies, a venture capital fund launched in 1998 to focus on life sciences spin-outs from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Centre, has paid off for the state. Created by Texas native Tommy Harlan, the fund had to fight off early pushback from citizens.

Emergent has since managed to alleviate fears that a fund would license technologies but establish the companies in Texas, and has successfully built eight companies in Oklahoma. These spin-outs are based on technologies developed by Paul DeAngelis and William Hildebrand, both PhD scientists and professors at the Health Sciences Centre.

Emergent has been dubbed an affinity fund by Harlan, as many of its investors are Oklahoma alumni. Amongst the fund’s biggest successes to date is Caisson Biotech. The spin-out commercialised DeAngelis’s work with sugar molecules, and has recently licensed a patented drug delivery technology, HEPtune, to Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. The  deal was valued up to $167m.

In the last twelve months alone, Emergent has generated $2m in license fees for Oklahoma University.

Tom Harlan, chief executive at Emergent, said: “We have created a lot of jobs in Oklahoma, we have not taken the technologies out of state, we have not recruited the scientists out of the university. It is really the opposite.”

Paul DeAngelis added: “I am a scientist, not trained in economics. Emergent is bringing together the ability to raise money, to negotiate deals, to build a good technology portfolio with patents. Having them on board lets me stay a scientist.”