RCT Defines the State of the Art in Technology Commercialization

Research Corporation Technologies is an independent technology management company that provides value-adding commercialization services to academia and industry. The company has been pivotal in the success of many important pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, biotechnology products, and new materials and processes.

Click here to read about these landmark technologies.

RCT's expertise, financial stability and long-term vision remain critical to its success in the complex, high-risk field of technology commercialization.

Adapting to an ever-changing business climate is equally important.

In the last decade, the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries have become less willing to invest in embryonic technologies. The uncertainties and risks inherent in newly discovered technologies are often too great to attract early development funding.

The large biomedical and pharmaceutical companies that traditionally developed early-stage technologies now can obtain more mature technologies from smaller startup companies willing to take on high-risk development. Although these young companies have made a great impact on industry, they often have a narrow focus and limited finances. The traditional venture capital community typically prefers to invest in more mature, lower-risk opportunities.

These economic realities have caught many potentially groundbreaking discoveries from research universities in a widening venture gap between discovery and development.

RCT is narrowing this "venture gap" by identifying these early-stage technologies and supporting critical work that adds value and furthers their potential for commercialization.

The company's Commercialization Group works closely with colleagues in its Business Development Group to identify technologies suitable for early development funding. These typically are technologies whose products or processes will have significant market potential once the risks are reduced through a reasonably straightforward development path. Our current areas of interest include:

  • anti-infectives
  • anti-inflammatories
  • cancer
  • devices
  • diabetes
  • multiple-drug resistance
  • neurological disorders
  • novel mechanism and control of hypertension
  • ophthalmologic disorders such as age-related macular degeneration and retinopathy
  • respiratory diseases

Once accepted for investment, the Commercialization Group works with the research institution and other development partners to create and carry out development and financing plans. A board of advisers from academia and industry may help direct the work. Studies are done in stages, with well-defined milestones. Often, the inventors conduct the initial research in their own laboratories.

As work progresses, RCT and partners may seek additional investors and collaborators to help further development. Ultimately, the value added to technologies will enhance their chances for further commercialization through licensing, sale to industry or other development sources.

RCT has formed and supports several development companies that exemplify our milestone-based technology development. These include Aeson Therapeutics, conducting clinical trials of fluasterone, a synthetic steroid with many potential therapeutic and preventive uses; Sertoli Technologies, developing a cellular transplant therapy for Type I diabetes and other diseases; and MetaProbe, a partnership with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena to develop contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging that reveal chemical or metabolic activities in the body.

RCT also has formed several alliances and initiatives to identify promising innovations that could benefit from venture gap funding. These alliances include BioVentures West, RCT BioVentures NE, Milestone Medica, BioVentures Australia, Cambridge Research BioVentures Limited (CRB) and RCT's Optics and Photonics Initiative.

BioVentures West targets technologies from research institutions in Southern California and RCT BioVentures NE works with research institutions in New England. Milestone Medica is a partnership between RCT and Canada's Royal Bank Ventures Inc. seeking discoveries from Canadian universities and research centers, and BioVentures Australia joins the resources of RCT and the venture capital company, Start-up Australia, to focus on innovations from Australian research institutions. RCT launched Cambridge Research BioVentures Limited (CRB) through a cooperative venture with Cambridge-based Emerging Technology Services Limited (ETS) to support early development of promising biomedical and life sciences discoveries in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The RCT Optics and Photonics Initiative invests in early-stage optics and photonics inventions.

These alliances use RCT's concentration of science, business and legal expertise to assess a technology's potential and the work needed to confirm it.

RCT's other professional staff members support all commercialization activities. The Law Department manages and coordinates new company formation, patent application filing and protection from infringement, and creates and helps negotiate licenses and other agreements. The Information Services Group conducts extensive patent and literature searches in databases and libraries, and the Communications Department provides print and electronic marketing materials, publications and media relations.

Sound development plans and appropriate financial support are critical to the future of early-stage discoveries. RCT's unparalleled experience and expertise, and its financial resources and partnerships are a powerful combination that gives important new technologies their best chance for commercial success.