Last week we had a panel discussion webinar on what university leaders should know about royalty monetization, including legal nuances, university mission view points, and buy-side perspectives. As an opener, we reviewed what a royalty monetization is and the growth of monetizations in the past few decades. The bulk of the webinar wasa practical discussion…
For many entrepreneurs, licensing from a university may be a new experience. This series of webinars provides information that will be helpful for academic entrepreneurs contemplating their first (or perhaps subsequent) license from an academic institution. Presented by an attorney who represents many academic startups, including their investors, along with two academic technology transfer veterans, these webinars bring views from both sides of the table and best practices for a fruitful and efficient negotiation.
Over the past year, tech transfer directors from Columbia, Duke, JHU, Penn, MIT, Stanford, and Yale worked with life science VCs from 5AM, Atlas, Polaris, OUP, RA Capital, and Venrock to create a common set of principles for university startup deal negotiations. These principles were captured in two documents: “Recommendations for Term Sheet Structuring”, covering equity, royalties, milestones, sublicensing, know-how royalties, diligence, and other recommendations for creating win-win outcomes; and “Recommendations for Process Improvements”, with recommendations for structuring the negotiation process itself to avoid unnecessary friction, gain buy-in early, and avoid overly long and painful negotiations.