Top US universities, institutes for life sciences in 2014

Using a ranking of US research institutions based on five years (2010–2014) of total gross licensing revenue reported by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), Nature Biotechnology obtained detailed life science commercialization information for 2014, then re-ranked these major universities by number of licenses/options executed (Table 1). Biomedical research institutes are found in Table 2. The number of licenses executed from this group have jumped considerably (566 for 10 universities in 2013; 1,072 for 11 in 2014), life science startups also grew (93 for 10 schools in 2013; 136 for 11 in 2014). Life sciences remain the driving force behind startup creation for this group (Fig. 1), with New York University sitting atop our list of license income earners (Fig. 2).

Table 1 US universities^* ranked by licenses executed, together with licensing revenue, life science startups and US National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards and funding.

Table 2 US biomedical research institutes ranked by licenses executed, together with revenue, startups and NIH awards and funding in 2014.

Figure 1: The life sciences accounted for the majority of incoming revenue, outgoing licenses and startups in 2014.

Data from universities in Table 1.

Figure 2

Life science licensing income earners, 2014.