Helping you turn breakthrough science into investable opportunities 

Academic ingenuity is limitless; funding, time and patent budgets are not. In today’s constrained funding climate, many TTOs must carry programs further down the value chain while juggling hundreds of disclosures and faculty expectations. Alacrita can help you cut through that complexity and accelerate the right assets toward industry traction.

Why TTOs choose Alacrita

  • A triple vantage point: We serve universities, pharma and biotech companies and the investor communities, giving us real-time insight into what licensees and VCs will fund, and why.

  • 350+ seasoned specialists: Project teams are built from our network of more than 350 domain experts who have discovered, developed and commercialized therapies across most major modalities and disease areas.

  • Full spectrum expertise across the academic landscape: We have partnered with more than 40 universities worldwide, supporting the full spectrum of technology-transfer activities - from evaluating invention disclosures and prioritizing projects to shaping spin-out strategies and guiding licensing and partnership discussions.

  • 15+ years of experience: Since our inception we have been guiding TTOs on evaluations, spin-outs, and licensing and partnering, giving us a clear, providing guidance informed by the university and industry sides.


The Challenges We Solve

Pain Point How We Help
Faculty disclosures overwhelm limited staff
Rapid triage frameworks to score technical merit, market attractiveness and "killer-experiment" readiness
Patent budgets are stretched thin
Evidence-driven go/no-go and continuance decisions that preserve capital for high-value IP
Early data won't entice industry
Milestone-based techno-commercial development plans that bridge the "valley of death"
Industry signals are opaque
Real-world partnerability assessments, mock due diligence and term-sheet support
Portfolio paralysis by politics and pressure
Objective portfolio reviews that re-balance risk, reward and institutional mission



Our Integrated Services Suite

Program & Funding Prioritization

We assist tech transfer offices with evaluating their biotech & pharma research projects for funding and commercial support, helping promising IP attract and secure investor and partner interest through systematic IP audits and project scoring.

Program & Funding Prioritization

Comprehensive evaluation to help promising IP attract investor interest:

  • IP Audit: Survey PIs to identify commercializable projects with filed or patentable IP across therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices
  • Project Analysis: Industry specialists validate information through internal analysis, external research, and targeted interviews
  • Strategic Scoring: Projects ranked by value in use, market attractiveness, and developability
  • Expert Panel Support: Help internal committees select projects for focused financial support
  • Resource Optimization: Enable targeted investment toward partnering and spin out goals

Technology Triage

Deep technical and commercial assessments of programs and portfolios, including critical market analysis, competitive positioning, IP evaluation, and expert technical critique to identify optimal development paths and industry engagement points.

Technology Triage

Deep technical and commercial program assessments:

  • Market Analysis: Critical evaluation of market opportunities and competitive positioning
  • Competitor Intelligence: Identify key programs from early discovery through clinical development
  • IP Evaluation: Assess intellectual property position sufficiency and protection strategies
  • Data Critique: Expert technical review of existing data strength and identified gaps
  • Development Pathways: Highlight optimal routes for licensing and spin out options
  • Industry Readiness: Outline research steps needed before partner engagement

Techno-Commercial Development Plans

For selected top-priority projects, we develop commercial development plans that set out the steps, objectives, timelines and costs to take projects to the next fundable milestone, whether licensing, spin out or translational research grant.

Techno-Commercial Development Plans

Detailed roadmaps for selected priority projects:

  • Milestone Mapping: Define steps, objectives, timelines, and costs to reach next fundable milestone
  • Flexible Endpoints: Plans adaptable for licensing, spin out, or translational grant pathways
  • Resource Planning: Detailed budgets and timeline projections for development activities
  • Risk Assessment: Identify potential obstacles and develop mitigation strategies
  • Decision Support: Enable expert panels to select projects for focused support
  • Value Creation: Target milestones that enhance partnering prospects

Supplemental Expertise

On demand support across multiple technology areas, providing specialized knowledge in spin out requirements, licensing deals, preclinical and clinical strategy, and guidance on additional evidence generation to attract biotech funding.

Supplemental Expertise

On demand support across technology areas and knowledge gaps:

  • Spin out Strategy: Requirements assessment, structure planning, and formation guidance
  • Licensing Deals: Term sheet development, negotiation support, and deal structuring
  • Preclinical Strategy: Development planning and regulatory pathway guidance
  • Clinical Planning: Trial design recommendations and development timelines
  • Evidence Generation: Identify critical experiments needed to attract biotech funding
  • Flexible Engagement: Project specific support tailored to your needs

Partnership & Licensing Support

Comprehensive support for partnership development and licensing transactions, including partnerability assessments, mock due diligence preparation, and hands on guidance through pitching and negotiation processes.

Partnership & Licensing Support

End to end support for partnership development and deal completion:

  • Partnerability Assessments: Evaluate technologies against current industry partnership criteria
  • Mock Due Diligence: Identify and address potential gaps before industry engagement
  • Pitch Development: Refine presentations and materials for maximum industry impact
  • Industry Outreach: Strategic targeting and engagement of potential partners
  • Negotiation Support: Guidance through complex deal structures and terms
  • Process Optimization: Establish frameworks for sustained partnership success

 

Explore how we can accelerate your technology portfolio

Interested in exploring how your disclosures could move from "interesting" to "investable"? Schedule a short discovery call with us to discuss practical first steps for sharpening priorities, stretching patent budgets and advancing your highest-value assets toward licensing or spin-out.

What partnering with Alacrita delivers:

  • Evidence-based triage
    Apply our scoring framework to cut review cycles from months to days and spotlight the handful of inventions worthy of your team’s limited bandwidth.

  • Capital-smart IP and development decisions
    Data-driven go/no-go criteria, milestone-based development plans and market-anchored valuations ensure every patent, grant or translational dollar is spent where ROI is highest.

  • Deal-ready positioning and negotiation strength
    Real-world partnerability assessments, mock due diligence and targeted outreach arm you with the story, data and terms that resonate with pharma, biotech and investors right now.

To set up a complimentary consultation, reach out today.

 

Related White Papers:

  • The Road to Approval: Navigating the Clinical Drug Development Process: The journey of a drug candidate from preclinical development to New Drug Application (NDA) approval is a critical and complex process in pharmaceutical development. This multifaceted journey represents the culmination of extensive research, rigorous testing, and significant investment. It's a path fraught with challenges, where scientific innovation meets regulatory scrutiny, and where the promise of groundbreaking therapies must be balanced against patient safety and commercial viability. This primer outlines the key activities and common pitfalls. 
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  • TTOs: Lost in Translation?: A constrained biotech funding landscape presents challenges for Technology Transfer Offices aiming to commercialize academic research. To succeed in this environment, TTOs must adopt a strategic approach. This involves prioritizing projects with strong commercial potential and discontinuing those unlikely to succeed. A clear commercialization plan with a robust IP strategy and a well-defined path to market is essential. Proactive engagement with potential licensees or investors is also crucial, requiring TTOs to actively seek out and engage with these stakeholders while remaining responsive to their inquiries. In a tighter funding environment, TTOs need to be more discerning and efficient to ensure successful technology transfer.
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Recent Projects: Tech Transfer Offices & Research Institutes

  • Fund-raising development roadmap for a premier cancer center: The tech-transfer arm of a leading cancer institute needed a step-wise plan to advance a promising small-molecule series that blocks a novel anti-invasion/anti-metastasis target in solid tumurs. The document had to convince venture investors while clearly positioning the institute’s inhibitors against newly emerged competitors.

  • Validated path for an early JAK2/STAT5 inhibitor: A university that had discovered a first-in-class small molecule for hematologic cancers retained Alacrita to test and refine its development strategy so the team could attract institutional funding.

  • Independent appraisal of three hematology programs: A university TTO again engaged Alacrita, after earlier triage work, to judge the commercial outlook and IP robustness of three projects aimed at chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and other blood cancers, each based on synthetic analogues of a naturally occurring macrocyclic polyketide with cytotoxic and immunosuppressive activity.

  • Strategic patent-estate review for a UK charity: Facing steep royalty declines as legacy patents expired, a medical-research charity with 300 active grants asked Alacrita to map its entire IP portfolio, highlight investable outputs that could replace lost income, and pinpoint research themes to prioritize in future funding rounds.

  • Radiopharmaceutical R&D strategy for a nuclear-physics institute: Keen to branch into nuclear medicine, a major nuclear research centre engaged Alacrita to craft a forward-looking research and development blueprint.

  • Commercial pathways for a resistance-reversal phage platform: A university TTO commissioned Alacrita to outline potential routes to market for technology that converts antibiotic-resistant bacteria back to drug sensitivity, reopening treatment with low-cost conventional antibiotics.

  • Portfolio triage for live-biotherapeutic and other assets: A leading U.S. university asked Alacrita to assess patent disclosures spanning a probiotic peptide-delivery system for infectious disease, a natural product for Alzheimer’s disease and an antibody-drug conjugate in oncology, helping direct internal funds to the most viable opportunities.

  • Investment-ready business case for a qPCR stratification platform: Researchers who developed a qPCR diagnostic/prognostic system for autoimmune diseases believed it could power a spin-out. With several VCs expressing interest, Alacrita was tasked with defining the optimal commercial route and preparing a robust financial plan.

  • Market and competitor analysis for three early oncology assets: A private US university’s therapeutics accelerator selected two small molecules and a lipoprotein nanoparticle therapy for IND-enabling work. To steer next steps, Alacrita delivered target- and indication-specific market and competitive landscapes for each project.

  • Opportunity mapping for gut-homing autologous Tregs in Crohn’s disease: A university group engineering regulatory T cells with intestinal-trafficking properties asked Alacrita to build a commercial roadmap and program valuation, factoring in the practicalities of harvesting and administering the personalized therapy.

  • Clinical expertise and valuation for an immuno-oncology spin-out: After a Phase I study of its lead antibody in ovarian cancer, a university spin-out needed more than a revenue forecast—it required a full valuation to underpin licensing talks with Big Pharma. Alacrita supplied oncology clinical insight and constructed the detailed financial model.


Case Studies: Tech Transfer Offices & Research Institute Case Studies

Challenge: After several years refining a novel interventional-cardiology device—and having recently completed porcine studies and begun collaborating with a blue-chip med-tech company—a university team sought an independent specialist to verify the project’s true status and provide a high-level feasibility sanity check.

Solution:

To deliver this appraisal we:

  • performed an expert technical review covering project history, current progress, underpinning principles and expected clinical impact;
  • carried out focused desk research using public sources and proprietary databases;
  • interviewed practising interventional cardiologists to gauge shortcomings in existing devices and unmet performance needs;
  • completed a top-line feasibility assessment to expose any potential performance or manufacturing red flags.

Challenge: The tech-transfer arm of a flagship cancer institute needed a detailed plan for a promising small-molecule series that targets tumour invasion and metastasis in solid cancers. The document had to win venture-capital backing and convincingly differentiate the institute’s inhibitors from newly arrived competitors.

Solution:

Our consultants scrutinised published literature and proprietary data to pinpoint tumour settings with the strongest biological rationale, benchmarked marketed and clinical-stage rivals, and drafted a target product profile. We designed an assay cascade that blended the investigator’s bespoke in-vitro/in-vivo assays with standard ADME, PK and tox panels, mapped an optimisation and preclinical plan, and produced indicative CMC and clinical-supply costings. Early-clinical options were evaluated, all tasks were woven into an integrated timeline, and a fully costed funding ask was assembled—ultimately securing a VC term sheet.

Challenge: A research-intensive university group had built a qPCR diagnostic/prognostic platform to stratify autoimmune-disease patients and hoped to spin out the technology. Interested VCs demanded a robust business model before committing capital.

Solution:

Alacrita validated the value proposition, quantified the market for relapse-risk biomarkers, and mapped the competitive landscape across marketed and pipeline technologies. We compared commercial-model options, confirmed a contract-lab spin-out was feasible, and produced a fully costed, timeline-driven investment case with financial projections. We also introduced the academics to a diagnostics-lab partner to expedite launch.

Challenge: A leading research institute exploring new production routes for ophthalmic therapies needed an assessment of market dynamics, supplier landscape and emerging technological approaches.

Solution:

The engagement comprised two parts:

1. Sizing and segmenting the market by application and geography, analysing demand growth, characterising supply-chain structure and cataloguing incumbent and developmental production technologies—allowing us to benchmark the client’s approach.

2. Profiling the competitive environment via a Porter’s Five Forces analysis adapted for regulatory impact, supported by primary interviews that supplemented secondary data.

Challenge: A UK university had devised a method for creating surface-immobilised functional RNAs in microarray format. Early commercial planning showed interest, but stakeholders wanted clearer evidence of practical utility.

Solution:

We built a commercialisation roadmap covering applications such as transcription profiling, transcription monitoring and translation analysis, detailing market size, competition, route-to-market options and project readiness. We then provided business-development support—identifying partners, preparing briefing materials, brokering introductions, guiding negotiations—and advised on patent-prosecution strategy for US and European filings.

Challenge: Discovering a new pathway regulating T-cell trafficking, plus an anti-inflammatory peptide and receptor, a university group envisaged a spin-out platform for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. With an experienced CEO-designate and interested VCs lined up, they needed technical and commercial validation and fund-raising materials.

Solution:

Alacrita confirmed the scientific attractiveness and practicality of the translational plan, refined the draft operations strategy and assumptions, and re-shaped the investment deck to spotlight key investor messages. We then authored a successful translational-research grant application that provided cornerstone funding for the pre-seed round and enabled the company’s formation.