CLEMSON - Technologies created by researchers at Clemson University have led to a dozen new companies, which have created 50 new high-tech jobs.
Four of those companies started up last year — a record year for university technology spinoffs, according to a survey by the Association of University Technology Managers released last week.
The University of South Carolina had six startups last year and the Medical University of South Carolina had three, according to the report.
Universities are required to look for ways to commercialize inventions that resulted from federally funded research. "It benefits the university and the community at large," said Vincie Albritton, interim director for Clemson's Office of Technology Transfer and associate director of the Clemson University Research Foundation.
Albritton said Clemson has 84 active patents available for licensing and commercialization.
"The impact of technology transfer is not in mere numbers reflecting the activities of offices, but rather in the benefit to the public of almost 700 new products reaching the marketplace in 2006," Patrick L. Jones, president of the Association of University Technology Managers wrote in a survey summary.
Clemson's startups are mostly biomedical, software and advanced materials businesses that hire people with advanced degrees. Most of the new businesses are located along the Interstate 85 corridor.
"The economic development sector, the chambers and S.C. Launch make our job a little bit easier to transfer technology to companies such as these," Albritton said. "We can't do it without the community."
The transfer also provides income to the universities.
For example, the patent on the Clemson Hip, a replacement hip adhesive, produced $7.4 million in licensing income for the college's bioengineering department during the 20-year lifetime of the patent, Albritton said.
Last year, Clemson led the state's three research universities with $2.45 million in licensee income, according to the technology managers' association report. USC received $412,531 and MUSC received $596,367.