Matchmaker in Massachusetts

With thousands of fledgling technologies searching for a commercial home, it's no wonder the business of technology matchmaking is flourishing. Technology matchmakers such as InnoCentive Inc. and Yet2.com, among others, help buyers and sellers of intellectual property to connect using online IP marketplaces.

In recent years, that same idea has migrated to the public sector, though not as a moneymaker. Massachusetts is using it as an engine for economic development -- and making it easier for homegrown companies to buy locally. The Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center, which the state Legislature created in 2003, is designed to introduce Massachusetts-based companies to technologies developed inside the state's public and private universities.

Seventeen universities are showcasing technologies via MTTC's Web portal. Tufts University, for instance, touts a compound that tempers dominance-related aggression in dogs, while Boston University offers an ion machining process to manufacture storage disks. In July the portal generated 6,500 searches. About 10% of those came via Google, says MTTC director Abi Barrow, a sign that the Web site is probably attracting attention from technology seekers outside of Massachusetts.

MTTC also provides training to help researchers craft business plans and some gap funding to help get promising technologies ready for market. In August the center awarded three $25,000 grants to individual researchers or teams at Northeastern University, McLean Hospital and the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

MTTC's budget is small, just $2.5 million for the budget cycle running through 2009, but that hasn't kept licensing managers at companies with state-based operations from embracing its Web portal. Bruce Pratt, vice president of science development at the biotechnology firm Genzyme Corp., has been working with the center for about a year and says that while he has yet to sign any licenses, MTTC has made it easier to explore useful technologies being developed inside smaller, less visible state schools.

"Innovation is pretty thin on the ground, so any organization that helps collect that into larger bundles that we can rapidly review makes our job easier and more efficient," Pratt says. "The government departments are very useful because it's their mission to showcase technology from their region and get us to the right people faster." It doesn't hurt, either, that MTTC's service is free.

Other companies that have tapped MTTC include Merck & Co., Nokia, Cisco Systems Inc. and Schlumberger Ltd. The oil and gas services company is moving a research center into Cambridge, Mass., and has been working with Barrow to gather state tech-transfer officials in order to present the company's technology interests to a wide audience in a single meeting. That kind of marketing especially helps smaller schools that lack the budget or staff to get their research in front of companies.

"It's a concept similar to a shopping mall, where you have two or three anchor tenants," Barrow says. "Obviously in Massachusetts we have Harvard and MIT so while people come to the mall to see what the big stores have, they'll also stop in to see what the smaller boutiques might have to offer."

Using technology transfer as an economic development tool is not an uncommon strategy. A handful of states including Connecticut, Oregon and Washington have grant programs to support university research similar to the one at MTTC. Florida also has a Web portal to showcase technology, though its focus is limited to state universities, and Barrow says she's heard from administrators at other New England universities interested in the possibility of developing a regional Web portal.

Of course, it can take decades for new industries to take root and prosper, but as home to the technology transfer powerhouse Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which contributes to the creation of approximately 150 new companies a year, MTTC's Web portal strengthens what is already a solid foundation.