4 area colleges rank in top 50 worldwide for patents

Universities are brimming with research, and four in the Philadelphia region rank in the top 50 worldwide for the number of U.S. patents granted for groundbreaking technologies in 2015.

The University of Pennsylvania was No. 19 among 600 universities, with 93 patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last year.

Rutgers University ranked 27th, with 65 patents. The University of Pittsburgh came in 35th, with 58 patents. Drexel University was No. 49 with 42 patents issued in 2015.

An annual report by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association tallied the number of "utility," or invention, patents granted to universities. The survey, released Tuesday, did not detail the type of research or innovation but said the discoveries might one day lead to new products, drugs, and technologies.

"What's important is that many of these issued patents are already part of active commercial partnerships with significant players," said John Swartley, associate vice provost for research and executive director of the Penn Center for Innovation. Many of Penn's recent patents have been partnered with, or licensed to, companies including Novartis, RegenxBio, Advaxis, Inovio, and Amyndas Pharmaceuticals, he said.

While the technologies have not yet resulted in commercial products, they have attracted "significant research and development expenditures, including dollars being spent here at Penn to further research and clinically develop product candidates," Swartley said.

Penn received $939 million in research dollars in fiscal year 2015, including $695 million from the federal government and $122 million in industry-sponsored research, said Laurie Actman, the Penn innovation center's chief operating officer.

Licensing income to Penn in the latest fiscal year was "just under" $42 million, she said.

Penn's patents were in the life sciences - drugs, treatments, and health care - and in focus areas including cancer immunotherapy and gene therapy. Patents were also in the physical sciences, including devices and diagnostics.

About half of Drexel University's 2015 patents came from the College of Medicine and half from engineering and other academic programs. Recent innovations helped launch several start-ups, said Keith Orris, senior vice president for corporate relations and economic development.

Among Drexel patents was a material derived from soybeans that helps heal wounds and that led to formation of Eqalix Inc. Another patent was for markers to diagnose liver diseases, including cancer, and viral infections, such as hepatitis, and was the basis of a company, Glycotest Inc., formed with a British investor group.

Still another Drexel patent covers a new class of "advanced materials" or nanocrystals called MXenes, being developed to store and extend battery life. Another material approved by the Food and Drug Administration is in human clinical trials to replace ligaments and tendons in surgery. It helped launch the company Soft Tissue Regeneration Inc.

Drexel received $651,298 in license income in fiscal 2015 and research funding of $101 million, the university said.

Rutgers University, with $677 million in research dollars, was "among the top 20 public universities" funded in fiscal 2015, said David Kimball, associate vice president of research commercialization.

Its 65 patents included two for developing antibacterial drugs in a collaboration with Merck & Co.

Rutgers also has a patent to regulate flowering and sugar metabolism in plants to make them "by modifying their biochemistry."

Rutgers' patent for a "thin film" biosensor is meant for cancer diagnosis and treatment. The Rutgers engineering school is developing a software sensor for detecting cellphone use while driving. A software microprocessor, or sensor, would be installed in a mobile phone. "It will automatically turn the phone off when your 15-year-old is learning to drive, for example," Kimball said. "It could be pretty important."

At the University of Pittsburgh, which ranks fifth in funding from the National Institutes of Health, patents for technologies "lean toward the life and health sciences," said Marc Malandro, founding director of the Innovation Institute.

The Pittsburgh start-up Complexa Inc., which has a business office in Radnor, has a pharmaceutical in clinical trials that uses "naturally occurring" fatty acids as an anti-inflammatory agent, said Malandro, who chairs Pennsylvania Bio, the industry group.

Two other patents were issued for a Pitt start-up, Cereve Inc., that recently won FDA approval to sell a nonpharmaceutical insomnia treatment that delivers "cooling fluid" to the brain through patches worn on the forehead.

"The cooling effect leads you to fall asleep and, more importantly, stay asleep without taking drugs and sleeping pills," Malandro said.

The top six universities in patents worldwide were the University of California system, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, the University of Texas, Tsinghua University in China, and the California Institute of Technology.

lloyd@phillynews.com

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