IP Stories

We had the pleasure to interview the Senior IP Officer at KU Leuven R&D, Pascale Redig. Her job involves managing research collaborations between academia and industry from an IP perspective, negotiating the contracts, as well as the commercialisation of the research via licensing. 

We talked with her about the importance of the collaborations between academia and industry, understanding each other's needs and “making it happen”, so that we can create new opportunities for researchers and “make the research work for the community”.

This episode is part of a tech transfer special, a series of interviews to better understand the transfer of knowledge from research centres, universities and laboratories, to the industry and our lives.

Links of interest:

We had the pleasure to interview Miguel Silva-Constenla, CEO & Co-Founder at AllRead Machine Learning Technologies, a spin-off from the Computer Vision Center of Barcelona, and now a scale-up with solid revenue and a dedicated team of 30+ people.  

Miguel holds a Master’s degree in Physics & Computer Science and an International MBA. He served in the Spanish Army as Specialist in Electronic Hi-tech combat systems and graduated with Honors. He worked in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the telecommunications industry, and later co-founded an extensive list of Tech companies across Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific, including the leadership of a Venture Capital Fund.  

He’s a great communicator and during this interview he gives great advice to entrepreneurs. Don’t miss it! 

This episode is part of a tech transfer special, a series of interviews to better understand the transfer of knowledge from research centres, universities and laboratories, to the industry and our lives.

Link of interest:

Els Henckaerts, MD, PhD is the head of the Laboratory of Viral Cell Biology and Therapeutics at KU Leuven. In this interview with Els, we see her as a researcher, as the CSO of a recently stablished spin-off and as a professor and mentor.

We learned about the advances of gene therapy, the importance of having the right support and strong patents when creating a spin-off, the relationship between the academic research and the pharma industry, and the amazing feeling she gets from seeing her PhD students thrive and collaborate with them.  

This episode is part of a tech transfer special, a series of interviews to better understand the transfer of knowledge from research centres, universities and laboratories, to the industry and our lives.

Dr. Isabel Vercauteren is CEO at Aphea.Bio, a company dedicated to provide novel science-based solutions to build the agriculture of the future: sustainable, reliable and profitable. It founded in 2017 as a spin-off of the VIB and its partner universities Ghent University and KU Leuven. We talked with Isabel about the challenge of raising capital (they have secured € 70 million Series C Funding); the importance of IP and their incredible work at Aphea.Bio. 

Links of interest:

Patrick Chaltin is the Managing Director of the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3). He is a qualified European Patent Attorney and was previously active as IP manager at the IP unit of KU Leuven Research & Development, where he was responsible for the management of the IP created by KU Leuven within the pharmaceutical field. 

In this interview, he shares with us his experience during the COVID pandemic for him and his team, his views on new IP policies, why collaboration is key in the pharma industry and some of the new drugs that they are currently working on.  

Links of interest:

In this episode, we talk with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to better understand the EU initiatives they are implementing to provide assistance, guidance and financial support to EU businesses.

Dr. Marta Karczewicz is Vice President of Technology at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. Marta's contribution has been crucial to the evolution of video compression. She holds more than 700 US patents, but for her the key is to focus on solving the problem, that should be what motivates you, the inventions and everything else, are a consequence. It was truly a pleasure to have a chat with such an inspiring person. 

This episode is such a roller coaster! Arnaud has told us about the beginnings of his company, The Blinc Group - a leading innovator in the cannabis vaporizer industry. We have learned how they use patents not only to protect themselves from competitors, or to defend themselves in court from the allegations of an industry giant; but also, to shape their business strategy, making the most of their innovation. 

He gives some great advice to entrepreneurs based on their experience, and probably it's quite different to what you are used to hear. 

Arnaud Dumas de Rauly is Founder & CEO of The Blinc Group: ⁠https://www.theblincgroup.com/⁠