Linda Naylor, managing director at Oxford University’s tech transfer office (TTO) Oxford University Innovation (OUI), has seen many interesting changes and ground-breaking technologies in her time. Global University Venturing spoke to Naylor about her 15 years with OUI, set to come to end next month as she retires and is replaced by Adam Stoten, who will become chief operating officer from April 1. Sitting in her office, which overlooks a large open floor space making up much of OUI, she notes how the number of employees has grown from roughly 20 people to nearly 100 in the space of a decade and a half that she has been with the office. Naylor appears rightfully proud of that growth and the hard work her team puts in day in day out, when asked about the highlights of the past 15 years. “For me, personally, although we are seen as one of the world-leading TTOs, it has been building up such a strong team of people – it is the people behind it that have made it,” Naylor said. “Obviously the research from the university is first-class, world-class, which is almost a given as it is Oxford. But for me tech transfer is all about people, and without the people we would not be this world-leading TTO – one of them anyway.” Of course, the external perception of a tech transfer office will always be guided by the kind of disruptive technologies it brings to the market, and Naylor has no shortage of examples here. Her two choices, however, are remarkable in that they illustrate the complexities and occasional frustrations of tech transfer. Neither of them went on to provide a blockbuster exit like that of Circassia, the allergy treatment developer spun out of Imperial College London that raised the largest UK biotech IPO in 2014 with $332m in proceeds. And both technologies took a long time to make it to market. Naylor noted that both existed when she first joined OUI. The first one is a device for liver transplantation. “This particular device retained livers at normal conditions – it mimicked the body’s conditions,” Naylor explained. “Currently, livers are frozen and they cannot be transported very far, whereas maintaining the body’s normal conditions allows livers to be transported much further. “The other thing is, currently about half the livers are thrown away – they are not used because they form fatty deposits. This device regenerates them, so it means you could…
Linda Naylor looks back on 15 years with OUI
Mar 25, 2017 •
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