Bioscience benefits Montana State University – Thirty firms have been spun off from Montana State University in Bozeman.

Here are some quick facts from Rebecca Mahurin, director MSU Technology Transfer Office http://tto.montana.edu/ :

• The university holds 163 licenses for patents for innovations such as biological, chemical and engineering processes and compounds, such as coatings for the space shuttle or a drug.

• Of those 163 licenses, about 60 percent are with Montana companies.

• More than half of those 163 licenses are for things coming out of biological sciences, including wheat, barley and other agricultural technologies.

• A license is an agreement for someone or a company to use something developed on campus. The university doesn’t sell its patents. If a company no longer wants to use a patent, the university gets it back.

• Last year, MSU received about $200,000 from leases and royalties. That’s just a start.

Most of MSU’s licenses haven’t produced royalties because many are used to produce drugs, and it takes years to develop, test and get a drug on the market.

Following Montana Board of Regents policy, MSU shares those revenues, splitting them 50-50 with university researchers after expenses are paid.

http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/01/25/news/state/21-bozeman.txt

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Gazette Opinion: University research a big benefit to Montana http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/02/12/opinion/gazette/50-gazetteopinion.txt