Taking McGill to market (Page 3)

Incorporation took over a year because, Smith says, "they were working out new approaches as they went along. The great fear was that I would have a wonderful idea -- although I don't know if I've ever had a wonderful idea -- and that rather than tell McGill, I would just go straight to my company, tell them, and the University would never know. They would be out of the loop, and the company would reap the profits."

To counteract this threat, McGill established an oversight committee to make sure researchers avoid any conflict of interest. It has never been convened in Smith's case, he points out, because there has never been any need for it. And Smith is generally happy with the final result. "Overall, the relationship between Bios and McGill, once it got underway, has been very cordial. Maybe the slowness was good."

The slowness was probably inevitable. For the past couple of years, McGill has been in the process of revising its Intellectual Property Policy to reflect the growing demand for commercialization and the relationship between researchers and McGill. While a revision is difficult, it is also necessary.

"We haven't had a main revision since 1986 -- and we didn't know very much then," Bélanger says. Not surprisingly, there are some areas of contention. "The main sticking points are ownership," explains Bélanger, who is spearheading development of the new policy. The division of royalties is also disputed, with the institution proposing a 60/40 split for inventor and University after the initial $10,000 (all of which would go to the inventor), and the McGill Association of University Teachers countering with a formula that would see the split being 80/20 for the first $100,000 and 70/30 after that.

While big numbers are being tossed around, the actual profit margin tends to be modest. "I don't think we should look at these offices as being established for the sole reason of making money," says Navarre. "If we do make money, everyone's happy. But our real aim is to add value to technology generated by researchers and to make sure this translates into the economy."

BŽlanger concurs: "Our number one goal is to get the technology out there." Thus, instead of backing only those spin-offs that promise lucrative returns, the University and the OTT support all requests for assistance that they deem reasonable.

But Navarre's team is stretched. "You cannot get a well to produce water if you do not have a pump," he says. "And depending on the power of the pump, you are going to have more or less water. We know we have a well, we know we can pump water, but so far, the quality of the pump we can afford..." He shrugs. The research and development budget for the University of British Columbia and its associated teaching hospital is roughly $140 million; their University Industry Liaison Office employs 25 people. At the University of Alberta, the technology transfer office is even larger, for a smaller R&D budget. McGill's OTT employs 12 people, eight of whom are liaison officers, although McGill and its associated hospitals have an R&D budget of $180 million. The pump, it would seem, is too small for the size of the well. But even with a larger pump, no one close to the office expects untold wealth to come rolling in as a result of technology transfer.

Says Navarre, "When you mine, sometimes you strike gold. Once you do, you may generate some hopes that everything you do will be gold." This hope, he makes clear, is delusory. Still, Lumenon, a McGill spin-off in the global communications field, is traded on Nasdaq and briefly went above the billion-dollar mark -- probably the University's biggest gold strike so far. "It puts us in a very nice position," smiles Navarre, "and eventually we will benefit from our investment."

But realistically, such triumphs are exceptional. "When I look at what we spend in this office -- services, patenting, protecting intellectual property, and so forth -- I would say that we are arriving right now at a break-even situation," Navarre says.

If wealth isn't pouring into University coffers, what of professorial pockets? Says Heyward, "I believe one can get rich through spin-offs, but I haven't." One of McGill's most successful "spinner-offers" is Architecture professor Avi Friedman, MArch'83, who developed the Grow Home, designed to be affordable and flexible, with former McGill colleague Witold Rybczynski, BArch'66, MArch'72. Although the project has won a slew of prizes, including a recent Habitat Award, and Friedman himself has just received the Manning Innovation Award, he notes that "I haven't seen the pink cherries lined up on the slot machine -- I haven't hit it big time yet."

But money is not the prime motivator. Says Friedman, "Nothing can be more rewarding than travelling to communities across the country and seeing that what you did in the University responds to the needs of many people. This is really what drives me." Similarly, Park stresses that her research attitude has become more focussed by meeting with women who have survived breast cancer as much as by her private-sector experiences.

Others simply prefer the academic work environment. Smith has resisted leaving the University to work for Bios because he is reluctant to give up academic freedoms (everything from working his own hours to following his own research interests) and because, he stresses, "I like students. They constantly challenge you and keep your brain from ossifying."

And that, in turn, will help keep the soybeans growing.