Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — You’d think a worldwideeconomic crisis would cause companiesto shut their doors to newlicensing deals aimed at taking technologiesmarket.

But the folks at the technology transfer office at Case Western Reserve University will tell you the opposite is true. The office set a record for new licensingrevenues during the fiscal year ended June 30 — $16.3 million.

“That’s our record by a lot,” said Joe Jankowski, associate vice president of technology management. Last year, the tech transferoffice brought in $13.2 million in new licensing agreements– and that was a record.

Oneof the reasons for its robust pipeline of invention disclosures that led to licensing and other money-generating agreements isthe maturity of the tech transferprogram at Case. “What’s nice about that is, we’re long enough along (that)we’re in the steady state of that pipeline,” Jankowski said.

Leaders in Jankowski’s office have been doing their thing in a bigger way since 2001 when Mark Coticchia, vice president of the university’s Office of Research and Technology Management, arrived from a Pittsburgh early stage venture fund. Coticchia expanded and organized the office, connecting it with independent economic development groups, and makingitmore prominent on and off campus.

The office’s licensing deals also are maturing.It can take several years to clear the intellectual property pathway to licensing an idea discovered by a faculty member or graduate student. And the licensing agreementsusually take years to produce income, Jankowski said.

Coticchia judges the success of his office more by the steady increase of licensing dealssince 2001 ratherthan one year’s worth of deals. “If you take a look at what has been accomplished … over the lasteight years, it truly has been dramatic,” said Coticchia, who has been on loan to the Ohio Board of Regents fora year defining how higher educationcontributes to the state’s economic development.

“Having the right kind of people and the right kind of approach — focusing on marketingversus managing intellectual property –which is theearly stage venture model is the most appropriate way to maximize commercialization opportunities at a major research institution,” Coticchia said.

So how is the tech transfer office at Case affecting the Northeast Ohio economy? That’s a tough question to answer. “What is the return to society for investmentsin research and technology?” Jankowski asked.It’s”always hard to find objective measures” to answer that question, he said.

One measure might be jobs created or retained in the region, he said. Another might be newinvestor money drawn to the region by promising companies and technologies.

BioEnterprise, the organization that develops biomedical and health care companies in Northeast Ohio, keeps track of investments made in these types of companies in the region, Ohio andMidwest. In the first quarter, $14.4 million was invested in Northeast Ohio companies, compared with more than twice that — $34.8 million — in the year-ago quarter,thanks to a poor economy and skittish investors.

First-quarter investing alsofell in Ohio by 68 percent to $16.8 million from a year ago. However,Midwest investmentsrose 14 percent to $155.6 millionfrom the year-ago quarter, thanks to a few big deals in Missouri and Minnesota, according to BioEnterprise (pdf).

Yet another measure of economic success could be the number of companies created by the technology transfer program. Last year, the Case office helped create five companies — AVN Medical, Cardialen LLC (St. Louis), Haric LLC, Invenio Therapeutics Inc.and Neuros Medical. That’sanother record. Of the group, only Haric is not a biomedical company.

“It’s nice to see that in this economy,” Jankowski said.