Penn Center for Innovation Annual Report

New Cancer Therapy for Dogs Discovered by Penn Vet’s Dr. Nicola Mason

Research in the laboratory of Nicola Mason, PhD, BVetMed, has led to a new therapy that aims to promote immune targeting of somatic mutations identified in the tumors of dogs with hemangiosarcoma, a highly aggressive cancer in dogs with ~1.5-2.5 million patients affected annually.

Hopefully, this therapy will prolong the lives of canine patients and also be useful in developing a therapy for the lesser known human form of this cancer, angiosarcoma.

Dr. Steven M. Albelda

Dr. Gregory L. Beatty

Cancer Research Alliance Established with Incyte Corporation

PCI facilitated a sizable multi-year Cancer Research Alliance with Incyte Corporation to propel advances in cancer biology and immunotherapy. Steven M. Albelda, MD, Penn Medicine, the William Maul Measey Professor of Medicine, and Gregory L. Beatty, MD, PhD, Penn Medicine, an assistant professor of Hematology-Oncology, both in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center, are co-leading the new oncology research alliance.

The collaboration brings together drug-discovery and development scientists from both Penn and Incyte to better understand immune responses to cancer and drive further innovations in the burgeoning field of immunotherapy (a new type of treatment that boosts the ability of a person's immune system to fight diseases such as cancer).

Incyte Announces Oncology Research Alliance with UPenn Cancer Center via Drug Discovery & Development
University of Pennsylvania Announces Cancer Research Alliance with Incyte via Penn Medicine News

mRNA Patent Awarded to Penn Medicine Researchers

Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, Penn Medicine and co-inventor Katalin Kariko, PhD, BioNTech were awarded a patent (Patent # 8,748,089) for their fundamental breakthrough in the field of modified mRNA (messenger RNA) technology. The platform technology invented by Weissman and Kariko increases stability of mRNA while also decreasing the immunogenicity, which greatly improves the potential to create and test mRNA based medicines for multiple therapeutic and prophylactic purposes. This technology is currently being developed by several companies.

Academic Affiliation with The Milner Therapeutics Institute

PCI is now an Academic Affiliated Organization with The Milner Therapeutics Institute, a global therapeutic alliance founded by University of Cambridge and based in Cambridge, UK, dedicated to the translation of basic science into therapies. The Institute consists of two components: research laboratories at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and an outreach program involving a therapeutics consortium of research and development institutions and biopharmaceutical company partners.

Penn Launches Startup CARMA Therapuetics Inc.

CARMA Therapeutics Inc., a recently-launched biotechnology company developing cellular immunotherapies, and co-founded by Penn, closed an initial round of funding co-led by AbbVie Ventures and HealthCap. The company is building a pipeline of cancer programs using its proprietary CARMA platform, combining chimeric antigen receptor targeting with macrophages to tackle a variety of disease conditions, including solid tumors. The company was formed around innovative technology developed by Saar Gill, MD, PhD and Michael Klichinsky, PharmD in the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies.

Visuals can be found in this article.

First Annual Celebration of Innovation Recognizes Penn Inventors

On May 4, PCI celebrated with all of the Penn inventors whose work resulted in awarded patents in fiscal year 2016 and presented special awards to several faculty for their particularly notable patent commercialization accomplishments. PCI also celebrated FY2016 as Penn’s best year ever for receipt of issued patents, with more than 100 awarded.

In 2016, Penn had its biggest year ever for patents. Here are some of its faculty inventors via Technically Philly

Special award winners:

2016/17 Inventor of the Year Award - John D. Lambris, Ph.D. - “Modified Compstatin With Peptide Backbone and C-Terminal Modifications”

2016/17 Biomedical Device of the Year Award - Joseph Gorman, M.D., Robert Gorman, M.D., and Matthew Gillespie, M.D.- US Patent 9,289,291 “Valve Prosthesis”
2016/17 Deal of the Year Award - Jean Bennett, M.D., Ph.D. and James M. Wilson, M.D., Ph.D. - 2016 Penn-Biogen R&D Alliance
2016/17 Partner of the Year Award - Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania
2016/17 Startup of the Year Award - Vijay Kumar, Ph.D., Exyn Technologies

Penn Licenses Technology to FA Therapeutics

In November 2016 Penn entered into an exclusive license agreement with FA Therapeutics LLC for the technology developed in the laboratory of Robert Wilson, MD, PhD, Penn Medicine, for the treatment of Friedreich’s ataxia (FA), a rare genetic neuro- and cardio-degenerative disorder with no currently approved treatment. Wilson is a world-renowned expert who has studied FA for 20 years, both in clinical and lab research settings.

FA Therapeutics is co-founded by Thomas Hamilton whose family has been affected by the disease – Thomas’s 13 year old daughter, Annie, was diagnosed with FA several years ago. The Hamilton family has been one of the generous benefactors of both the Center of Excellence for FA Research and the Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA), which continues to fund the FA research in Dr. Wilson’s laboratory.

Pennovation Center Grand Opening

The Pennovation Center–home of the PERCH (Penn Engineering Research and Collaboration Hub), PCI Ventures, the Hershey Innovation Lab, a wet lab incubator, and coworking space—held its grand opening celebration on October 28, 2016. The celebration featured remarks from Penn President Amy Gutmann as well as the co-founders and co-CEOs of Warby Parker, Dave Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal.

PCI Fosters Technology Innovation with Comcast at the Pennovation Center

The Comcast Pennovation Challenge provided an opportunity for Penn faculty and students to work directly with Comcast to develop new ideas for the IoT (Internet of Things). The winner, Viewpoint, comprised of a multidisciplinary team of Penn students, successfully created a method and technology to visualize the structural stability of railway and roadway bridges through a creative application of connected monitoring devices.

Comcast-Pennovation Challenge Winners Want to Upgrade Philly’s Bridges via Philadelphia Magazine
Philadelphia's aging infrastructure needs work. The first Comcast-Pennovation Challenge winner can help. via Philadelphia Business Journal

PCI’s Commercialization Impact Highlighted in the Philadelphia Business Journal (PBJ) article Spinovation

The PBJ recently profiled Philadelphia’s academic tech transfer organizations, including PCI, to better understand and highlight how commercialization is contributing to the city’s economic development and reputation as a regional center of innovation.

PCI and Penn are clearly identified in the article as the premiere institutional driver of innovation and economic impact in the region.

Read the article.

Penn Ranked #6 in Milken Institute Tech Transfer Rankings

The Penn Center for Innovation was named as the 6th best tech transfer office in the country by the Milken Institute, moving up significantly from its ranking of 12th place a decade ago. The four-year average (2012-2015) of indicators (licenses issued, licensing income, patents issued, and startup formation) all contributed to Penn’s impressive rise in the overall rankings.

First-ever Commercialization Guide for Penn Created and Published by PCI

The first-ever guide to commercialization at Penn was published at the end of FY2017. The Commercialization Guide offers faculty and external partners an easy and accessible reference to guide them in pursuing commercial partnerships and entrepreneurial activities at Penn. The guide provides both comprehensive and detailed information around working with PCI on all kinds of commercialization activities, and it also covers key topics such as: Penn’s Patent Policy, creating a startup at Penn, the process for patenting intellectual property, disclosing conflicts of interest, and other answers about the commercialization process.

Penn Center for Innovation

Year In Review

ideas

Penn Faculty and Innovation Community

370 Penn faculty inventions submitted and reviewed

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commercializing

$86.7M awarded for Industry Sponsored Research Agreements

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869 patents filed, 111 U.S. patents issued

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654 Commerical Agreements, not including non-disclosure agreements

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23 PCI-Facilitated Penn Spin-outs

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connecting

44 Press Mentions

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35 programs hosted by PCI

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Commercialization Guide Released

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accelerating

PCI and the Pennovation Center

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Meetings with 15+ major international companies to discuss Penn-based partnerships

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New Cancer Therapy for Dogs Discovered by Penn Vet’s Dr. Nicola Mason

Cancer Research Alliance Established with Incyte Corporation

mRNA Patent Awarded to Penn Medicine Researchers

Academic Affiliation with The Milner Therapeutics Institute

Penn Launches Startup CARMA Therapuetics Inc.

First Annual Celebration of Innovation Recognizes Penn Inventors

Penn Licenses Technology to FA Therapeutics

Pennovation Center Grand Opening

PCI Fosters Technology Innovation with Comcast at the Pennovation Center

PCI’s Commercialization Impact Highlighted in the Philadelphia Business Journal (PBJ) article Spinovation

Penn Ranked #6 in Milken Institute Tech Transfer Rankings

First-ever Commercialization Guide for Penn Created and Published by PCI