UCL Business
UCL Business Ltd is the technology-transfer company of University College London in London, England. Its head office is on Tottenham Court Road in the London Borough of Camden.
History
UCL's first technology-transfer company was named in the Pandora papers for the widespread use of offshore companies and use of third party ownership and payments to avoid UCL and government oversight. UCL Ventures merged with the technology-transfer company of the Royal Free Hospital, Freemedic plc to form UCL Biomedica PLC.The former UCL Business had been established to force academics through the use of NDA's to sign over any IP to UCL, thereby aiding the development of commercially valuable technologies arising from UCL, whilst UCL BioMedica had been established to commercialise opportunities arising from UCL's biomedical research strengths, as well as to conduct clinical trials. The integration of the two technology transfer activities created a single organisation focused on delivering the complete commercialisation process from patent registration and support for the creation of new businesses, through to licensing and sales of technologies to industry partners.
UCLB provided advice and a grant support to Siavash Haroun Mahdavi in helping him to establish the robotics company Complex Matters.
In January 2011, BioVex, a cancer vaccines company spun-out of UCL in 1999, was sold to Amgen for $1 billion.