Executive Summary

Founded in 1925 to administer the vitamin D patent portfolio of University of Wisconsin, Madison professor Harry Steenbock, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation was considered a model for the Bayh-Dole Act, which gave institutions title and rights to their federally funded inventions, and also the responsibility to actively commercialize them, consistent with the public interest. WARF's licensing activities have included the development of blood anti-coagulants, leading to Coumadin, another generation of patents on pharmaceutical use of vitamin D analogs, and the medical imaging technology digital subtraction angiography. Since the passage of Bayh-Dole, WARF has added to its licensing portfolio, among other inventions, MRI imaging techniques, the so-called "UW Solution" for preserving organs for transplantation, and core patents on the use of primate and human embryonic stem cells.