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**"Small Business Thread"**

**October 13-17, 2007**

[**http://www.srainternational.org/sra03/uploadedFiles/SessionDescriptions07.pdf**](http://www.srainternational.org/sra03/uploadedFiles/SessionDescriptions07.pdf)

**Register Today
(<http://www.srainternational.org/sra03/template/tntbAM07.cfm?id=1514>
)**

**Who Should Attend**

-   Small business administrators and CEOs of small companies that are
    in the Medical Device industry, Biotechnology industry,
    Pharmaceutical industry, and Healthcare industry;

-   University faculty members thinking about creating a start-up
    company

-   University administrators working with small, technology companies

> Learn about all the topics listed below by bringing a colleague or
> student to attend the sessions!

**What You Will Learn**

The Small Business Thread presents a blend of Federal and non-federal,
national and international, speakers, who are experts in topics on
university start-ups, small business funding opportunities and
university partnership opportunities, conflicts of interest issues,
technology transfer, intellectual property, venture capital, and
translational research.

Attending the Small Business Thread sessions listed below, you will
learn about best practices, funding and partnership opportunities for
innovative research with commercial potential, available resources, and
how to get started. Don't miss this exciting opportunity to listen to
innovative concepts and network with people creating new knowledge and
technology. Don't miss this chance to meet with subject matter experts
and to ask questions about your issues. We hope you will be able to join
us. This session will give you practical tools and bring you information
about how to tap into \$2.2 Billion of Federal funding for innovative
research with commercial potential.

**Monday, October 15, 9:45 -- 11:15 am**

**[M2]{.underline} "Boot Camp for Entrepreneurs"**

**Bruce Lynskey**, Clinical Professor of Management, Vanderbilt
University

*Have you ever considered starting a company? Wonder what is involved?
Join us to learn how to organize a start-up; the different kinds of
entities; the pros and cons of selecting one kind over another; key
issues to consider in setting up a board of directors, intellectual
property and financing; lessons learned; and case studies. As more and
more universities spin off start-up companies, faculty and
administrators need to learn how to avoid the pitfalls.*

**Monday, October 15, 9:45 -- 11:15 am**

**[M5]{.underline} "Gaining Efficiencies in Technology Transfer
(Professor, This One's for You!)"**

**Terri Parker**, Texas A&M University System

**David Riddle**, Texas A&M University System

*Imagine a university that allows faculty researchers to hold equity in
their own company, collect royalties on university licenses issued to
their companies resulting from their university discoveries, and
subcontract R&D activities from their company back to their university
labs. Plus, those commercialization efforts are a recognized output of
faculty scholarship in the tenure process! Updating tenure policies
related to technology commercialization is the latest in a series of
steps taken recently by the Texas A&M Systems to place a higher priority
on industry-university partnerships and to support and encourage faculty
members whose research endeavors result in new discoveries, including
patentable inventions and technology suitable for commercialization.*

**Monday, October 15, 9:45 -- 11:15 am**

**[M12]{.underline} "The SBIR/STTR Programs" -- The Best (no-strings
attached) Early-stage Fund in Town**

**JoAnne Goodnight**, NIH SBIR/STTR Program Coordinator, National
Institutes of Health

*The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business
Technology Transfer (STTR) programs provide more than \$2 billion each
year to small businesses and partnering research institutions to assist
entrepreneurs in taking their ideas from laboratory to market. The SBIR
and STTR programs fund projects at the earliest stages of development
and assist firms who have not yet attracted funding through venture
capital or other alternative financing to succeed in commercialization.
This session will provide an overview of the SBIR/STTR programs, the
nuances of the NIH SBIR/STTR program, and ways industry and academia can
develop mutually beneficial partnerships to commercialize their
technology innovations. This is a highly opportune time to consider
funding through the SBIR/ STTR programs, particularly at a time when
universities are creating a more robust climate for the
commercialization of university intellectual property innovation and
entrepreneurship.*

**Monday, October 15, 2:00 -- 3:30 pm**

**[M21]{.underline} "Innovation and Translational Research Guides
University Research"**

**Paula Means**, Wake Forest University Health Sciences

**Roberta Nixon**, Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia

**Jacqueline Mullen Hunt**, Universidad del Turabo

**Molly Hardigree Cancel**, Universidad Metropolitana

*What is translational research? Why is it discussed so frequently?
Learn what universities, both U.S. and international, are doing to
create cross-disciplinary partnerships for new programs. Hear how
universities are fostering new research ideas into innovations and
products. Find out what foundations and agencies are involved in
translational research. Discover what agencies are funding this new
research area and learn about opportunities for your institution to
become involved.*

**Tuesday, October 16, 8:15 -- 9:45 am**

**[T33]{.underline} "How Do you Define Success: SBIR & STTR Programs:
The Private Sector,**

> **Public Sector and University Trifecta"**

**Bryan K. Ford, Ph.D.**, University of Alabama

**James Leyda, Ph.D**., Cumberland Emerging Technologies, Inc.

**Eric Sander,** President, V2R Group, Inc.

**Kathleen Shino, M.B.A.**, National Institutes of Health

*The process of creating and transitioning the great storehouse of
university research and development to commercial products is by its
nature a true partnership of great university innovators, experienced
entrepreneurs and adequate funding sources. This session will enhance
your overall understanding of the SBIR and STTR programs and their role
in the commercialization process within a university to include a
discussion of the intellectual property process, to describe the
advantages of researchers participating with small business, and to
underscore the necessity of forming long term commercialization
partnerships to maximize the potential for success of funded
SBIR/STTRs.*

**Tuesday, October 16, 8:15 -- 9:45 -- 11:45 am**

**[T43]{.underline} "Working with Venture Capital Companies"**

**Paul Waugaman**, Technology Commercialization Group

*Bankers and others providing venture capital are constantly faced with
good ideas and potentially earthshaking inventions, the
commercialization of which they are asked to fund. From initial actions
to protect the viability of marketability to how much each party will
share in the costs and profits, the process of working with venture
capital firms and speculative venture underwriters is arcane and not
understood in academia or small business research environments. This
session will explore the issues to be addressed before a venture capital
firm is approached, the signs of a marketable invention, the steps in
venture capital investment in new technology and the questions to be
answered in negotiating an agreement with a venture capital firm.*

**Tuesday, October 16, 10:15 -- 11:45 am**

**[T44]{.underline} "Academic Spin-offs: Capitalizing on Employment
Opportunities for University**

> **Researchers, Students and Research Administrators"**

**Sid Chambless**, Executive Director, Nashville Capital Network

**Christopher Rand**, Associate Enterprise Development, Vanderbilt
University

**James Stefansic**, CEO, Pathfinder Therapeutics, Inc.

*Academic spin-offs deserve special attention because they are expected
to strengthen future-oriented sectors of the economy, to grow more
rapidly than "normal" company start-ups and therefore, contribute more
than the latter to the industrial/economic structural change in regions
and entire economies through gainful employment. In this session,
panelists from Vanderbilt, Pathfinder and the Nashville Capital Network
will discuss the issues and solutions that lead to their successful
collaboration. Participants should be prepared to ask questions, discuss
variations and identify contributing factors that their institutions
might consider to expand employment opportunities through new business
start-ups for academic researchers, research administrators and
students.*

**Tuesday, October 16, 10:15 -- 11:45 am**

**[T48]{.underline} "Conflicts of Interest in SBIR and STTR: How to
Ensure Your University**

> **Entrepreneur Plays by the Rules of the Road"**

**Cindy Kiel, JD, CRA**, University of Nevada Reno

*In reviews of financial interest related to SBIR/STTR proposals, the
relationship between a university employee/small business owner and the
university-entity does not follow traditional models. Join us to discuss
issues and potential management solutions for topic such as when the
faculty member wants to wear two hats, that of university researcher and
entity consultant or entity business official and dealing with accepting
awards of any type from companies owned by their faculty members. This
session will provide you with an opportunity to think long and hard
about the mechanisms and management of entrepreneurial researchers
taking their technology on the road toward commercialization.*

**Tuesday, October 16, 1:45 - 3:15 pm**

**[T64]{.underline} "Losing Patent Rights for Failing to Comply with
Bayh-Dole: The Implications of the**

> **Campbell Plastics Case on Federally Funded Research"**

**Eric Guttag, JD**, Jagtiani and Guttag

*Most research institutions are aware that the Bayh-Dole Act allows them
to retain title to patent rights in federally funded research. What
these research institutions may not know is that patent rights can also
be lost if the subject invention is not timely disclosed to the federal
funding agency pursuant to Bayh-Dole. This lesson was brought home by
the recent case of Campbell Plastics Engineering & Manufacturing, Inc.
v. Brownlee, in which a federal defense contractor forfeited its patent
rights for failure to timely disclose. In addition to reviewing the
Campbell Plastics case, this presentation will discuss what research
institutions can do to comply with Bayh-Dole.*