The Salk Institute Streamlines Technology Transfer

Challenge

Founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies is one of the most highly renowned scientific research institutes in the United States. With hundreds of researchers dedicated to molecular biology and genetics, neurosciences, and plant biology, the independent, nonprofit institute plays an essential role in the advancement of scientific discovery. 

As is the case in many similar organizations, technology transfer is crucial for bringing research to the market and providing additional funding opportunities that, in turn, support ongoing projects. However, the technology transfer software first implemented at Salk in 2011 did not meet expectations on several levels, from a lack of integration with other software and workflows to upcharges for additional key functionality.

Anna Gandolfi, a Business Manager at Salk’s Office of Technology Development, helps handle the licensing, agreements, compliance, funds, and patents required for technology transfer. With a busy workload, tight deadlines, and revenue on the line, her team needed more out of their software to operate efficiently. 

With the current service provider unable to make quality-of-life improvements and requesting additional payment for features like AUTM reporting, administrators knew that they needed a better management solution to facilitate more effective technology transfer. 

“We had too many attachments, including duplicate entries, or worse, of organization names, group names, and people.”
Business Manager, Office of Technology and Development

Solution

While Salk’s technology transfer vendor sought a renewal contract and additional subscriptions for necessary features, the Grants Administration and Compliance offices were already using Cayuse for grants development and conflict of interest reporting. 

Tired of manually moving information between separate systems and lacking an organized, central repository, Anna and her team saw an opportunity to align technology transfer processes and data with the Grants Administration Office and Compliance teams by switching to Cayuse Inventions. “We thought, this is perfect,” Anna said of the potential move, “we’ll be able to talk to Sponsored Projects and get our inventions in there, and they can all see each other.”

With other departments successfully using Cayuse Sponsored Projects and Outside Interests, the team was able to preview Cayuse’s robust and more user-friendly software, and ultimately agreed to implement Inventions. “It just seemed like a better way for Salk to use the same database,” Anna recalled, adding that “in the long run, it was going to be a better, more efficient use of our funds.”

“[The previous vendor] started to charge us for everything that we wanted… Not only did Cayuse offer these without extra fees, but it could also integrate with sponsored Projects and COI.”
Business Manager, Office of Technology and Development

Results

Even before the full software rollout, the team saw immediate benefits from moving to Cayuse Inventions. The transition provided an opportunity to clean up existing data before loading it into Inventions, helping to create reliable, single entries for each individual, group, and organization in their database and demonstrating how the previous solution had created unintended and often unnoticed duplicate entries. According to Anna, “Inventions gave us much tighter controls on who’s entering what, so we don’t duplicate effort or data. That was important.”

Intuitive interface

Following the full Inventions launch, the more intuitive user experience helped increase adoption and eased administrative tasks for faculty. With Cayuse Inventions, the technology transfer team can find important information for invoices, distributions, and more at a glance instead of spending time digging through an unintuitive system. As Anna highlighted, “You can tell somebody who knows what they were doing about patents and intellectual property designed this. That’s a benefit.”

“With the intuitive way it looks and feels, I can tell that Inventions was designed by somebody who uses it.”
Business Manager, Office of Technology and Development

Streamlined workflows and forms

Improvements to workflows and forms have also been a significant benefit for the Office of Technology Development. For example, the technology transfer process requires the completion and submission of Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) forms, with the office handling an estimated minimum of 700 MTA forms each year. Thanks to Inventions, these forms and others like them are now completely electronic, with preconfigured fields to ensure all necessary information is included and accurate before submission. 

The transparent, digital workflows allow all stakeholders to access copies of the forms for better oversight, keeping researchers and administrators accountable while making sure nothing falls through the cracks. Additionally, Cayuse’s centralized platform increases access and accuracy, with information across the research lifecycle available for faculty to reference at any time.

Robust reporting

Finally, Anna and her team are excited by Inventions’ excellent reporting capabilities, from one-click AUTM and iEdison reporting to dashboards that allow for easy data visualization and exporting. These accessible overviews and metrics, Anna indicated, will be useful for reporting back to Salk’s leadership team and supporting data-driven decision-making. “In the big picture,” she concluded, “I’m really happy we transitioned over.”