Technology transfer is starting to pay off for North America's universities and hospitals according to a new survey released by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). After five years of annual growth at a rate of 20%, income from license agreements jumped to 47%, amounting to $1.26 billion, for the last fiscal year analyzed, which was 2000.

“Some of it is simply a maturation of the [biotech] industry,” says AUTM president-elect Patricia Harsche, of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. “Many of the licenses that were entered into eight to ten years ago are now products.”

Several one-time events, however, have inflated the total figure. The biggest—$200 million—was the University of California's settlement of two patent infringement lawsuits against biotech company Genentech for human growth hormone. But even without that settlement, license income across the board for these institutions grew 23% with most of the money coming in the form of product royalties.

Several institutions earned more than $30 million in royalties, and two—the University of California and Columbia—topped $100 million. Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, whose royalty payments came to $5.4 million (up 800% on the previous year) can thank the Food and Drug Administration's approval of Levulan, a photodynamic therapy system for precancerous skin lesions, and European sales of erectile dysfunction drug Uprima contributed, as well as unspecified royalties from Bristol–Myers Squibb for patents on the cancer drug Taxol.

Income from redeemed ownership of shares in companies rose from $25 million to $165 million, or 15% of total income. For example, Dartmouth College sold $60 million in equity from the monoclonal antibody company Medarex, which was cofounded in 1987 by Dartmouth Medical School; and Georgetown University received $26 million for Aventis' allergy drug Allegra which was invented by Georgetown's Raymond Woosley.

2000 also saw a 32% increase in the number of academic startup companies, a trend that's likely to continue, says Mark Chalek, director of the office of corporate research at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, which tripled its income in 2000. “People have realized you can do these things thoughtfully, deal with the conflicts of interest, and create firewalls between companies and academic labs appropriately,” he says.