CU reaps $30 million on Botox treatment for incontinence

BOULDERThe University of Colorado has received a $30 million payout for a Botox treatment that one of its faculty members invented in the late 1990s.

The treatment, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August, was developed to treat urinary incontinence in people with neurological conditions, such as spinal-cord injury and multiple sclerosis, who have overactive bladders.

"Upon that approval, we went to a number of investment organizations that purchase royalty streams, and we conducted, in essence, an auction," explained David Allen, the director of CU's Technology Transfer Office.

Since the inventor is no longer at the university, royalties are divided between the university and the Tech Transfer Office.

The Camera learned of the payout through an open-records request that included an e-mail written by CU president Bruce Benson updating the regents on the matter. Benson, in the e-mail from January, said there is a possibility to earn $10 million more from the monetization of the treatment.

"This has spurred our thinking into how we can do a better job maximizing our licensing of intellectual property," Benson wrote in the e-mail. "We have determined to form a science advisory committee to guide our efforts in the area."

The treatment consists of Botox being injected into the bladder, resulting in relaxation of the bladder, an increase in its storage capacity and a decrease in urinary incontinence.

California-based Allergan Inc. licensed the technology, which was invented by former CU professor Richard Schmidt and patented by CU.

Typically, the formula for divvying up revenue from commercialized research is that 25 percent goes to the inventor, 25 percent goes to the CU campus that supported the inventor's research, 25 percent goes to an account to benefit the university and 25 percent goes to the campus chancellor, who directs the money to research with tech-transfer potential.

But when the inventors are no longer employed by the university as is the case with the Botox treatment the 25 percent that would have been paid to them is distributed between CU's Tech Transfer Office and the campus where the research was developed. CU's Anschutz Medical Campus hosted the Botox research.

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CU reaps $30 million on Botox treatment for incontinence