Bridging the Valley of Death between the Lab and the Market: Oregon’s Lab2Market Initiative

Melissa M. Appleyard, professor, Portland State University, School of Business Administration

Public-private partnership helps bring technologies to the real world
Great ideas often find themselves in the “valley of death” between the laboratory and the marketplace. To stave off this fate, professors at Portland State University – in cooperation with private- and public-sector partners across the region – conceived of Oregon’s Lab2Market Initiative to help early-stage technologies survive. The Initiative is a three-year, $600,000 National Science Foundation grant through the Partnerships for Innovation program. The four Portland State University Principal Investigators on the grant are: Prof. Melissa Appleyard, School of Business Administration; Prof. Steve Benight, Department of Chemistry; Prof. Erik Bodegom, Chair of the Physics Department; and Dean Marvin Kaiser of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In preparing the grant, they benefited greatly from their primary partners including OHSU, OSU, UO, ONAMI, OECDD, PDC, PNNL, and countless private-sector partners. Through this private-public partnership, the overarching goal of Lab2Market is to assist in creating high-wage jobs by providing a bridge between the laboratory and meaningful real-world applications.

Two-pronged approach includes business training and mentorship
At the end of the three-year grant, the plan is to have launched 12 new technologies through licensing agreements or start-up ventures. A two-pronged approach supports this launch plan.

The first prong is an educational component whereby managerial thinking is imparted to science and engineering researchers. Technologists from universities and companies around the region are invited to participate either in person or online through streaming video interactions in the education programs. The kickoff was in March 2005, when Lab2Market – in cooperation with OECDD, PDC, ONAMI, and Northwest Technology Ventures – hosted a workshop on SBIR/STTR proposal preparation. In April 2006, Lab2Market will host two sessions at Innotech on April 20 focused on early-stage financing for technology-based start-ups. Also, a short course based around business cases studies was offered in September 2005 and will be offered again in the fall of 2006.

Business cases bring to life the primary issues in commercializing novel technologies involving issues such as financing, marketing, staffing, business ethics, business plan formulation, and alliance management. In order to extend the reach of the initiative to the science and engineering students of the future, the researchers involved will share their experiences with a diverse population of high school students who participate in outreach programs affiliated with PSU.

The second prong of the Lab2Market Initiative focuses on a venture-mentoring program that brings together the talent represented by the initiative’s outstanding partners. Mentor teams have been formed with the members being experts in entrepreneurship, venture capital, intellectual property management, economic development, as well as MBA students. The teams mentor the innovators behind the 12 focal technologies to help them lay the groundwork for market launch. The 12 technologies are selected through a competitive process. The first six technologies were selected in October 2005, and the second six will be selected in October 2006. In each round, the goal is to select one technology from each of the four participating universities (PSU, OHSU, OSU, UO) with the remaining two technologies originating from either the universities or other organizations or independent inventors in the region.

Six technologies selected for mentoring so far
In the first round of the Technology Disclosure Competition in October 2005, six exciting technologies were selected for mentoring. They reflect the world-class research being done around the region in science and engineering with promising commercial applications. The mentor teams – comprising experts including IP attorneys, serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and technology transfer officers – are meeting monthly with the six innovators to help the technologies reach the marketplace.

The six technologies currently undergoing mentoring are:

• PSU Prof. David Peyton’s quest to improve anti-malaria drugs focused on drug-resistant strains
• PSU Prof. Shalini Prasad’s groundbreaking work in biochemical sensors
• OSU Profs. Chih-hung Chang and Brian Paul’s novel approach to the nanofabrication of dendrimers
• University of Portland Prof. Sister Angela Hoffman’s technique for Taxol extraction from soil to help treat cancer patients
• The “FAST-ID” of harmful insects developed by IPM Development Company under the leadership of CTO Philipp Kirsch
• Power generation for wireless sensors based on technology developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and being commercialized by Perpetua under the leadership of Jon Hofmeister.

Lab2Market fosters community of innovators in Oregon
Both through the education programs and through the venture-mentoring activities, the projected long-term payoff from Oregon’s Lab2Market Initiative will be to foster a far-reaching community of innovators. It is envisioned that this community will spur economic growth in the region and ultimately contribute to high-wage job growth in the state of Oregon.

About the author
Melissa M. Appleyard joined the faculty of Portland State University’s School of Business Administration in 2003, as one of the first Ames Professors in the Management of Innovation and Technology. Her research focuses on how knowledge creation and diffusion catalyze economic growth and business longevity in technology-intensive industries. Over the past decade, she has concentrated on the global semiconductor industry’s ability to achieve perpetual innovation in design, process integration, and manufacturing. She serves as a research fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Competitive Semiconductor Manufacturing Center at UC Berkeley, and a co-principal investigator on Oregon’s Lab2Market Initiative, an NSF Partnerships for Innovation program. Prof. Appleyard’s work has been published in leading academic journals such as California Management Review, Industrial Relations, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, and the Strategic Management Journal. She holds a B.A. in Economics/International Area Studies from UCLA, and a Ph.D. in Economics from UC Berkeley.