December 8, 2000

Contact: Roger Martin, KU Center for Research, (785) 864-7239.

Baxendale to oversee tech transfer for all KU campuses

LAWRENCE -- The administration of technology transfer efforts at the University of Kansas just got simpler.

Jim Baxendale, who has overseen technology transfer for the KU Medical Center campus for the past four-plus years, has been named executive director for technology transfer and intellectual property for all KU campuses.

"This move provides focus for our efforts in technology transfer and commercialization of intellectual property," said KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway. "Jim has provided leadership in this area at the Medical Center and I'm confident about his abilities to maximize KU's opportunities."

Previously, the programs had been separately administered by the Lawrence campus KU Center for Research and the Medical Center's KU Research Institute.

"This kind of consolidation is typical of what's happened in Oklahoma, Colorado and Missouri," Baxendale said.

Baxendale said his priorities are education, commercialization and outreach.

He said he hoped to educate faculty about intellectual property, enhance the commercialization of technology, bring venture capital resources to the Lawrence campus to look at technology that might be transferred, and increase collaboration between the KU Medical Center and Lawrence campuses.

He's also aiming to catalyze collaboration among KU and Kansas City institutions like Midwest Research Institute and Children's Mercy Hospital.

"We have to teach faculty to think commercialization," Baxendale said, "to understand the commercialization process and how to participate in it."

Technology transfer activities can produce revenue for universities in several ways. For example, patents that are successful can generate licensing fees and royalties related to product sales.

But the biggest revenue return of all may come from the formation of companies around university-developed technology, Baxendale said.

Several companies, including Cydex and ProQuest, have been spun out of the Higuchi Biosciences Center on the Lawrence campus.

Technology discovered at the Medical Center has resulted in the formation of corporations like Xenotech, Flint Hills Scientific and Biostratum, Baxendale said.

Baxendale said he would spend Wednesdays and Fridays on the Lawrence campus and the rest of the week at the Medical Center.

Baxendale has a bachelor's degree in medical technology, master's degrees in microbiology and business administration and has spent 18 years of his career in the medical device industry.