Durham, N.C. -- As part of a new focus on technology transfer at Duke, Rose Ritts, Ph.D., has been hired to run the newly named Office of Licensing and Ventures (OLV). The office -- formerly the Office of Technology Licensing and Venture Development -- is budgeted to more than double in size under Ritts' leadership. Ritts, a Duke engineering alumna, said that she will offer more responsive and comprehensive service to faculty exploring commercialization of their discoveries.

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“The tag-line we have put in place for the office is ‘Linking Ideas to Impact’ and that really summarizes what the office is all about,” said Ritts. “OLV is the bridge between Duke innovators and the industrial and venture partners needed to bring new discoveries and technologies to where they can really impact people and society.”

Said Vice Chancellor for Corporate and Venture Development Robert Taber, "We recruited Rose after a nationwide search that lasted nearly two years. Of the many candidates we looked at, Rose stood out as having all the right attributes including venture, academic and business experience. The fact that this diverse background was acquired in first-rate environments made her even more clearly the outstanding candidate."

Vice Provost for Research James Siedow said "I am really excited about Rose taking over the directorship of OLV. The energy and new ideas she is bringing to the enterprise complements our own desire to ramp up technology transfer efforts across campus. She is a wonderful hire, and I believe will do much to distinguish our technology transfer efforts from those of most other schools."

Ritts comes to Duke with a background in corporate, government and entrepreneurial environments. Her experience includes designing pacemakers, drug pumps and other implantable devices; serving as a program manager for biowarfare defense systems at DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; managing a biotechnology and materials business unit within a large New Jersey corporation; and most recently starting and running a venture-capital-funded biotech startup, PowerZyme Inc, in Princeton, New Jersey, where she was a director and CEO from 2001 until taking the OLV position at Duke.

Ritts received her B. S. in biomedical engineering from Duke, her M. S. and Ph. D. from Stanford in electrical engineering, and graduated from Stanford's Entrepreneurial Executive Management Program.

A major feature of Ritts' approach will be to treat both Duke inventors and outside partners as customers, she said. For faculty, this will mean proactive interaction and a rapid response -- within a few months -- to faculty submitting their discoveries for patenting consideration.

"We will think of our inventors as customers and will manage our relationships with them as we would in the business world," she said. "So, when a faculty member submits an idea to the office for patenting, we will make rapid decisions about how to proceed. The decision process will include both patentability and marketability analysis, and we will communicate with inventors about both the process and the outcome." Also, said Ritts, she plans to initiate a program of "innovation mining."

"We won't just respond to invention disclosures from faculty, but we'll also proactively meet with faculty to explore with them the kinds of technologies in today's business climate that are licensable and appropriate for sparking new ventures," she said.

"And rather than presenting ourselves as merely a bridge between the university and the business community, we'll seek to be a value-added player to both," she said.

The office will help faculty assess whether the most appropriate route to commercialization is licensing their discoveries or creating a startup company.

"I think renaming the office as the Office of Licensing and Ventures represents an acknowledgement that we will work with faculty to develop the best scenario for their particular case," she said. "It’s all about how to get their innovation into the hands of the people who need it, in the fastest and most effective way possible.

"Faculty here are vested in developing some really amazing technologies, and they want to know that have impact," she said. "And so, the challenge for our office is to clearly articulate how they can make an impact on society by bringing in corporate partners."

Her experience in the corporate world also has taught her the importance of streamlining the process of establishing relationships with universities. She said the OLV team will work to create processes that send a message to potential partners that Duke is a place that understands how corporate and venture entities do business and is working to facilitate successful team building and partnerships.

Ritts said that among her first priorities at the OLV will be to develop a comprehensive web site with forms and guidelines for patent disclosures, as well as other information on management of intellectual property.

Also, she said, she is now recruiting four new associate directors to bring additional technical expertise and entrepreneurial experience to the office. “Compared to other institutions with funding levels comparable to Duke’s, Duke has had significantly fewer staff in place to handle the patenting and licensing functions,” she said. “Our associate directors Henry Berger and Amy Collinsworth have been quite successful in licensing Duke technologies, but the portfolio is much too big for two people to handle.”

“By building the right team, asking the right out-of-the-box questions, and running the office with good business practices, Duke can be a model for best practices in licensing and ventures,” said Ritts. “There are a lot of great people and groups at Universities all over the country taking on this challenge, but no one has gotten it quite right yet. I am firmly convinced that Duke can become a national leader.”

For more information, contact: Dennis Meredith | (919) 681-8054 | dennis.meredith@duke.edu