Ranking High

Athletes aren't the only ones at Wake Forest University drawing national rankings these days.

Wake Forest was the No. 2 university in the country for return on research investment based on discoveries made by medical and technology researchers. The ranking was done by Forbes.com.

With the emergence of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the research of Dr. Anthony Atala, its director, industry officials said that the university is likely to rank high on the Forbes.com listing for the foreseeable future.

The Association of University Technology Managers also contributed to determining the ranking, which had New York University at the top of 189 candidates.

The ranking focuses on commercial revenue generated from university patents, also referred to as technology-transfer revenue. For example, the University of Florida has been ranked consistently among the top tech-transfer universities in part because of the royalties generated from Gatorade.

For 2006, Wake Forest had a 41 percent return on investment, or about $61 million on research spending of about $146 million.

"The quality of the research being done here, and ability to generate revenue from it, has become a deciding factor in attracting and retaining faculty," said Michael Batalia, the director of the Office of Technology Asset Management at the university's medical school.

"It is helping our credibility with technology companies, particularly in lending itself to follow-up deals," Batalia said. "We will strive to enhance our reputation in the years to come."

Among the recent medical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology discoveries are spinal rods, skin-cell spray guns, laboratory-engineered fingers, ear reconstruction, insulin treatments, three-dimensional imaging and even predictive reading techniques.

The tech-transfer office was established at Wake Forest in 1985 to manage the intellectual assets of both the medical school and the rest of the university. It works with faculty, students and staff to identify, protect and transfer research discoveries to the commercial sector for development into new products.

From 2003 to 2007, the Wake Forest tech-transfer office generated 233 invention disclosures, along with 81 patent applications filed, 37 patents issued and 47 new licenses and options.

In those four years, licensing revenues have produced more than $235.3 million, most of which are reinvested into future research endeavors, Batalia said.

Companies contributing to the tech-transfer revenue include Amplistar, Kucera Pharmaceutical Co., MithraGen, MRI Cardiac Services Inc., Pilot Therapeutics and Seed Stage Associates.

Several of the Wake Forest patents generated more than $1 million in licensing revenue in 2006, including the V.A.C. System, which uses vacuum technology to help wounds heal, and a virtual endoscopy machine, which allows surgeons to examine the inside of the body with minimal impact.

The V.A.C. System has been licensed to Kinetic Technologies of San Antonio, and the virtual endoscopy machine has been licensed to GE Medical, a unit of General Electric.

More than statistics

"Just as important as the numbers is the stories behind the research," Batalia said.

That includes the spinal-cord research being done by Dr. Charles Branch with the Capstone spinal medical device and Quadrant neurosurgical tools.

The Capstone device has made it possible to make spinal surgery less painful by allowing for smaller incisions, Branch said.

"When you spoke about a lower-back fusion procedure 15 years ago, you were talking about an operation that had a patient in surgery for four to five hours, in a bed for weeks, if not months, and complete recovery time of a year or more for some patients," Branch said.

"Now, because of the device, the surgery typically lasts no more than 1½ hours, the patient goes home the next day and may be back on the job within three months, depending on what they do."

Branch said that the spinal-fusion products developed at the university have been producing annual revenue approaching $2 million.

The tech-transfer office is becoming a major economic engine for the local community, said Doug Edgeton, the president of Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem. Wake Forest has been the main supporter of the research park since its inception.

Batalia said that the university has only begun to scratch the surface for tech-transfer revenue from the regenerative medicine institute and the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials.

The regenerative medicine displayed some of its latest developments Monday as part of a kickoff for its portion of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine.

The Wake Forest institute was awarded on April 17 a five-year, $42.5 million grant from the U.S. Defense Department that focuses on the use of regenerative treatment for lost limbs or severe burns, the signature injuries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said at the kickoff that the $700 billion financial bailout approved by Congress also contained an additional $3 million grant for the military regenerative institute.

Shared work

The Wake Forest institute is sharing the lead role in an academic consortium with the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. The Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine also includes another consortium led by Rutgers University and the Cleveland Clinic.

Regenerative therapies use the body's natural healing powers to restore or replace damaged tissue and organs.

Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army's surgeon general, said in April that recent advances in battlefield medicine have kept alive soldiers who are in need of reconstructive or regenerating therapies.

"What we have now are devastating blast-induced wounds that in prior conflicts resulted in death in the first few hours," Schoomaker said.

As a result of the advances, a higher percentage of men and women are returning from combat alive. But more are doing so with amputated limbs, severe burns, or shattered, disfigured faces. Those injuries make it harder for the wounded to assimilate back into civilian life.

In addition to the federal financing, Wake Forest and its partners said they would provide more than $150 million from academic institutions, industry sources, and state and federal agencies for the projects for a total of almost $200 million available for regeneration research to benefit soldiers.

The Wake Forest-Pittsburgh consortium will focus on five types of clinical therapies: burn repair; wound healing without scarring; skull and face reconstruction; limb reconstruction; regeneration or transplantation; and compartment syndrome, a condition related to inflammation after surgery or injury that can lead to increased pressure, impaired blood flow, nerve damage and muscle death.

"We can't predict when these therapies will reach our military personnel and our civilians because of the medical and regulatory challenges we will face," Atala said. "We hope it will be within five years.

"We have to balance accelerating research and therapies with safety."

Despite all of the accomplishments of the Wake Forest regenerative institute since 2004, Atala said he believes that it remains in the early stages as far as its potential for biomedical research and technology.

"No matter how much we do, there's always more that needs to be done," Atala said. "We want to go beyond just managing disease and injuries. We feel, in some ways, inept until we can find cures."

■ Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.