A list of the most active universities for biotech patents (Table 1) shows the University of California system far ahead of the field. Institut Pasteur is the second most active university for European patents, and Duke ranks second for both US biotech patents and total patents, ahead of notable institutions such as Stanford, WARF and MIT. Overall, biotech patenting is on the rise, as seen in Figure 1, though the increase is being driven by US patenting.

Table 1 Top universities for biotech patents, 2008–2012
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Figure 1
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Biotech patent trends, 2008–2012

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First Rounders Podcast: William A. Haseltine

Haseltine founded Human Genome Sciences (HGS) in 1992 and ran the firm until 2004, establishing the company at the forefront of applied genomics and producing a new therapy for lupus sufferers. Nature Biotechnology spoke to Haseltine about his time at HGS, the future of genomics in drug discovery and how innovation might be funded going forward. http://www.nature.com/nbt/podcast/index.html