Arizona Technology Enterprises, ASU's technology transfer company, has finalized a deal to help fund the efforts of a similar company at the University of Michigan.
Tim Becker, a former ASU doctoral student involved with the deal, detailed the agreement reached Tuesday between Michigan's Neural Intervention Technologies and ASU's Arizona Technology Enterprises.
"ASU provides us the novel technology protection - the patents," he said.
In July, ASU's technology company was approved for patents on work by Becker and his former professor, Daryl Kipke.
Until 2001, Kipke served as an assistant professor of bioengineering at ASU. Then, Kipke and Becker transferred to the University of Michigan and, in 2002, formed a technology transfer company, Neural Intervention Technologies, to commercialize their product.
Peter Slate, chief executive officer of ASU's company said, "The way the license agreement worked is that all intellectual property that [Kipke] continues to develop continues to go into the bucket of which we're sharing - pretty much 50/50 - with the University of Michigan."
While at ASU, Kipke worked to develop ALGEL, a material made of alginate. Alginate is a sugar-based hydrogel that comes from seaweed.
The liquid is non toxic, non-adhesive and "used for stabilizing neural probes that communicate directly with the brain to restore visual, auditory or motor function," said Becker, who worked as a doctoral student with Kipke at ASU to co-develop the product.
ALGEL treats defective blood vessels in the brain that can cause lesions, such as arteriovenous malformations (a tangle of blood vessels), aneurysms and brain tumors.
Slate said the deal with the University of Michigan is just another one of many more relationships that the technology enterprises will form in the coming months.
"We have a lot of potential transactions in the pipeline, when they close is hard to predict, but this should be an exciting year for ASU's technology venturing initiatives," he said.
Reach the reporter at michael.miklofsky@asu.edu.
