RAKING IT IN AT PATENT U.

So which patents—along with their universities and scientists— are leading the race for royalties? An exact ranking is difficult, thanks to inflation and closely guarded revenue figures. But here are a few of the top contenders, along with notable also-rans. Number One Patent: The biggest income producer of all time is probably cisplatin, a cancer drug developed at Michigan State University and licensed to Bristol-Myers. Royalties for this drug have already topped $55 million—and are continuing at more than $10 million a year with about eight years left on the patent. So far. Michigan State has taken in $15.3 million and inventors Barnett Rosenberg Thomas Krigas. and Loretta L Van Camp have divided another $8 million. Richest Scientists: One of the top inventions of all time is Gatorade. Since 1973, this thirst-quencher, designed by University of Florida researchers to replace nutrients the body loses in athletic activity, has brought in $9.1 million for the school, and royalties continue to roll in. But what really makes the drink so lucrative for its creators is the deal they struck with the university; a 20-80 split, with the lion's share going to the scientists. That means chief inventor, J. Robert Cade, and a group of graduate students attorneys and others listed as co-inventors, have hauled in $36.4 million. Surprise Hit: Few people ex- pected the canine parovirus vaccine developed at Cornell University to be a big seller. But after it was patented it cornered the market. "The chances are take your dog to the vet to get shots anywhere in the world you'll get a Cornell shot for parovirus disease," president of Cornell Research Foundation Inc. The university received $400,000 in royalties last year—and a total of $1.5 million since the patent was issued. Biggest Improvement: Until 1988, the University of Houston brought in less than $100,000 each year from all its patents combined. But that meager take skyrocketed last August—when Du Pont spent $1.5 million for an exclusive license to the superconductivity work of Paul Chu. The deal also called for Du Pont to pay an additional $1.5 million two years later and $1.5 million more upon patenting. Multiple Winners: MIT has scored big twice, with the magnetic core memory for computers, which took in about $22 million over its lifetime, and synthetic penicillin, which netted some $14 million. The products have also been lucrative for the scientists themselves; by best estimates, core memory inventor Jay Forrester received between $2 million and $3 million in personal royalties. Another multiple success story is the University of Wisconsin. In the 1920s, it developed a process for irradiating certain foodstuffs with ultraviolet rays to enhance Vitamin D formation—a technology that found its way into virtually every milk bottle. Decades later, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation patented certain derivatives of Vitamin D now used to treat renal osteodystrophy and other bone-related diseases. Gross revenue surpassed $14 million, and the university netted about $8 million. WARF and the University of Wisconsin also received a patent in 1947 for the rat poison warfarin and later marketed a derivative of the compound as a drug for heart disease. All told, warfarin produced more than $4 million in revenue. Worst Decision: The Indiana University Foundation should have brushed up on licensing agreements before it dealt its patent for stannous fluoride toothpaste to Procter & Gamble. The patent, issued in 1957, paved the way for Crest. The university’s share of royalties could easily have surpassed $100 million—but all that trickled into the school’s coffers was $3 or $4 million. The reason: Rather than being based on prod- uct sales, royalties were tied to the amount of stannous fluoride used. “Why that’s so, I really don’t know,” says Thomas M. McGlasson, general counsel for the Indiana University Foundation, which made the licensing deal. Rising Star: The Stanley Cohen- Herb Boyer patent for recombinant DNA technology held jointly by Stanford and the University of California, may eventually be the top money producer of all time. The patent, issued in 1980 for the U.S., covers the general field of DNA cloning. Whenever scientists insert a foreign gene into a host and grow something, they have to pay a licensing fee of $10,000 a year and royalty payments that usually amount to 1% of total product sales. Biotechnology giant Genentech, however, has a slightly different deal with the universities. The South San Francisco firm pays 1% in royalties for the first $5 million of product sold, three-quarters of 1% for the next $5 million and a half percent after that. This means that the Cohen-Boyer patent will produce more than $500,000 just from the first-year sales of Genentech’s clot-breaking drug tPA. And Genentech is just one of some 85 firms licensing the patent. So far, the patent has meant total revenue of $10.6 million—including $3.5 million last year. Cohen and Boyer are the only ones on the patent, and while their universities have slightly different royalty-dividing policies, the two men are each receiving about 15% of total royalties. “Nice, huh?” quips Katherine Ku, associate director of Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing.

RAKING IT IN AT PATENT U.

The Scientist Staff

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