UNM spawns 11 spinouts during 2019

University of New Mexico (UNM) produced 11 spinouts through its Science and Technology Corp (STC) tech transfer office during the 2019 fiscal year, the university announced yesterday.
The result appears to match the 11 companies generated during 2017-18, according to a local media report published at the time. Of the 2018-2019 total, seven remain headquartered in New Mexico, with about half developing health-related applications.
STC helped file 102 patent applications during the period, up from 93 year-on-year. It reported 124 invention disclosures, compared with 107 in 2017-2018.
In all, STC earned some $1.9m in royalties and patent payments over the course of the year. With the inclusion of grants and other revenue sources, the TTO’s overall turnover reached $3.5m.
In addition to the 11 spinouts, STC said “dozens” more businesses were formed by faculty or students eager to reach the market without formal tech transfer input, but with the help of the university’s entrepreneurship services.
These services are anchored around the university’s Lobo Rainforest Building in the Innovate ABQ hub, which now houses the STC along with the Innovation Academy incubator program, responsible for creating some 54 businesses since its opening in 2015.
The incubator is geared towards students hoping to commercialise new products, providing them with classes and other educational activities. It resulted in 18 new companies being formed during the 2019 financial year, UNM said.
The university now aims to introduce similar entrepreneurial supports to its satellite campuses around New Mexico, having been equipped with $560,000 in grant funding for this purpose from the US government-owned Economic Development Administration.