The University of Zagreb close a biomedical commercial deal thanks to IP Booster

Petrovic leads a small office of three full-time technology transfer staff at the University, whose duties include not only intellectual property matters, but also support the technology transfer ecosystem of the University of Zagreb as a whole.

The team had a good general knowledge of technology transfer negotiations, but Dr Petrovic thought that they might benefit from the in-depth intellectual property expertise of the IP Booster team. She decided to apply for the IP Booster service on negotiating technology transfer, and was subsequently advised to apply for the valuation service too.

“We weren’t quite sure about the value of the technology,” Dr Petrovic explains. “This was something that we had experienced in general terms in evaluating the market potential but maybe not as robustly as you would need to really support the negotiations. You can’t negotiate confidently if you don’t fully understand what is the value that you have.”

The IP Booster team produced an in-depth analysis of the market and of the market penetration, giving them an overview of the overall lifetime value of the product and the sale value that the University could reasonably expect.

“This was also very helpful for our internal discussions, because of course you do have internal stakeholders in technology transfer deals, the management and the research team. It’s been very helpful to have an external assessment and to be able to present the results,” she says.

The University of Zagreb then went back to the company that they had approached previously under guidance from the IP Booster experts, as part of the negotiating technology transfer service. With coaching from IP Booster, they initiated discussions, presented a proposal, and finally closed a deal in November 2019.

“I don’t think it would have happened that fast actually, if we didn’t have the support of IP Booster,” says Dr Petrovic. It had even more impact as the university were also in the throes of managing patent applications for the technology, so closing the deal with the company meant that costs associated with the patent applications could be covered more easily.

The University of Zagreb were so pleased with the results of IP Booster that they applied for additional services in relation to a separate project, the development of a trademark that universities could award to spin-off companies. They are currently receiving that service.

Written by Catherine Collins for IP Booster