Five Businesses That Spawned from UNM Patents

It’s s a matchmaker. But instead of shooting arrows like Cupid, the University of New Mexico Rainforest Innovations plays the tricky role of matching research professors and their patents with entrepreneurs, capital and other players in the New Mexico startup sector with each other.

Earlier this month, Rainforest Innovations highlighted five UNM-based patents that have been licensed by companies for use in New Mexico and around the world.

Lisa Kuuttila, the president and CEO of Rainforest Innovations, said when a researcher at the university is onto an invention, he or she will fill out an invention disclosure form. The Rainforest Innovation team will do a patent search to see if a similar concept exists. If it doesn’t, the team will start matching up the researcher with entrepreneurs and investors or other resources.

Through a partnership, the UNM Foundation can invest in startups that spawn out of the university, which essentially creates an ecosystem ripe for developing new technologies.

“It sounds simple, but it’s really complex matchmaking,” Kuuttila said.

Here’s a sample of patents, inventions and companies that spawned from UNM research.

PAJARITO POWDER:

The Albuquerque-based company licensed a patent that was published in 2016. The invention was a new type of fuel cell that provides an alternative source to gas or electric batteries. Electric vehicles, for the most part, use batteries charged with electricity. Fuel cells instead create their own technology with hydrogen. Pajarito Powder is using the patent to develop non-platinum-based batteries.

TS-NANO:

The company, located in Albuquerque, was started by Mahmoud Reda Taha, a distinguished professor and regents lecturer at the UNM Gerald May Department of Civil Construction and Environmental Engineering. He was the lead inventor on a 2020 patent of a new method to manufacture a sealant on drilled holes used for pumping water, natural gas and oil. It can detect and seal the smallest of cracks to prevent oil spills and leakage.

INTELLICYT CORPORATION:

The Albuquerque-based company has been acquired by Sartorius, a large German biotechnology company for $90 million, but still has an office in Albuquerque. IntelliCyt was a startup in 2006 using a patent by Larry Sklar, a professor emeritus at UNM’s School of Medicine Department of Pathology. The patent allows pathologists and researchers to screen multiple cell samples at once.

EMERALD BIOTHERAPEUTICS:

This new biotechnology group acquired technologies from several biotechnology companies, including a 2021 patent from the UNM School of Medicine Department of Pathology that offered a new method for treating ovarian, breast, head and neck, testicular and prostate cancers, as well as Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.

IC-SAFETY:

James Plusquellic, a professor in the UNM Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, started the company. Plusquellic in 2012 was the lead inventor on a patent to protect devices from hackers. The patent established a worldclass system to provide a high-level of encryption to help secure data.