Page 199 - HBR's 10 Must Reads 20180 - The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review

PROKESCH

and the eagerness of one of the lab’s scientists to start a company
to commercialize the discovery, Langer resisted taking that step just
yet. He wanted to keep the lab team intact and to continue to work
on the technology—for instance, demonstrating its safety through
“chronic treatment” studies in large animals (giving them the treat-
ment, say, daily for a month) and developing new formulations that
could further enhance the delivery of the drugs.
This extra research, unfettered by commercial timetables, paid
off. Over the next 18 months or so, the lab demonstrated that the
technology could deliver a whole new class of drugs (unencapsulated
nucleic acids), broadening its potential applications. The team also
published more articles on the research in peer-reviewed journals,
providing proof that the original data was reliable and replicable.
Only then did Langer agree to help raise funds for a new company,
Suono Bio, to take over development.

Reward the researchers
MIT awards inventors one-third of royalty income after expenses
and fees. (The rest goes to the researchers’ departments or centers,
MIT’s technology-licensing office, and the university’s general fund.)
In recent decades a growing number of universities have instituted
similar policies, but the approach is still highly unusual in the cor-
porate world.

Involve the researchers in commercial development
Over the years many members of the lab have left for positions at com-
panies that took on their projects, where their passion for getting the
technology to market has proved as important as their expertise. “One
of the reasons a lot of the companies have done well is that the cham-
pions have been our students who’ve gone to them,” Langer says.
“They really believed in what they did in the lab and wanted to make
it a reality.” Other researchers have advised companies while remain-
ing at the lab or after moving on to other universities. Langer himself
serves on the boards of 10 Boston-area start-ups that have emerged
from his work. While a growing number of universities have relaxed
restrictions on professors’ involving themselves in commercial

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