Data Licensing Opportunities Abound, but Deals Are Not Without Challenges

It appears, at first glance, like a no-brainer: Universities, particularly those with affiliated health care centers and organizations, have virtually immeasurable stores of data — the kind of data that companies in the forefront of areas like AI, machine learning, and quantum computing would love to have. It seems like an obvious source of significant potential licensing revenue.

However, “obvious” does not equal “easy,” and the barriers TTOs face in discovering, collecting, and developing an inventory of all the potentially valuable data they have are significant — issues around PHI, regulations, ethical issues with consent, federal agency requirements, quality, and data management are among the biggest hurdles. In fact, many leading research universities admit that they are still in the very early stages of developing strategies to mine this data “gold.”

“It’s a mess, especially for us commercialization people,” asserts Jim O’Connell, assistant vice president for commercialization and director of UF Innovate at the University of Florida.

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