IP Pragmatics CEO Rupert Osborn will also co-chair a session at the Conference. The session, titled 'The Power of the Crowd', will explore how the concept of ‘crowd sourcing’ has entered the university technology transfer landscape, creating opportunities for solving technology issues, or raising funding.

The conference takes place at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham on 13-14 June. The session on crowd sourcing takes place at 11.45am on 13 June.

IP Pragmatics assisted Dr Ryan Donnelly, a pharmacist at Queen’s School of Pharmacy, to apply for Super Follow-on Funding from the BBSRC to develop his microneedle technology, which delivers drugs without causing pain or bleeding.

IP Pragmatics will also be closely involved with the commercialisation of Dr Donnelly’s technology as he looks to manufacture the product and take it to market.

Dr Donnelly said: "Our next step in moving towards commercialisation of this exciting research is to scale up production to industrial levels. We will do this over the next two years thanks to a £710,000 award from BBSRC that came through last month. The first patients will benefit from our microneedle technology in three to five years from now."

Pfizer Animal Health (PAH) has claimed the top spot as the largest animal health company by revenue for several years. Last year was no exception; with revenue of $4.3bn, Pfizer’s sales were 25% greater than its nearest competitors’. The headline news for 2013 is the spin-off and IPO of PAH on the New York Stock Exchange in early February. The IPO raised $2.24bn, at $26 a share, and values the new standalone company, Zoeitis, at $13bn. This was the largest public offering since Facebook last May. The wider Pfizer group retains an ownership stake of 83% although it is anticipated that over time Pfizer will significantly reduce its stake. The formation of Zoeitis had not only created the world’s largest standalone animal health company, it created a company which spans all the elements of animal health with significant market positions in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, genetics, diagnostics and feed additives, and across all species from companion animals to livestock to aquaculture.

In second spot with sales of $3.4bn, the animal health division of Merck (also known as MSD Animal in some territories), reported 4% full year growth. Merck AH saw particularly strong growth in their core products for cattle and poultry despite a weak performance in the second half of 2012.

Merial (now fully owned by Sanofi-Aventis, France), retained third place with sales of €2.2bn, but saw growing disparity of success between its food and companion animal operations. The companion business saw negative impact from increasing generic competition whilst sales within the food business , particularly for avian (+18%) and swine (+31%), are thriving. Their successes was largely attributable to revenue increases within emerging markets, but their full year overall performance is down on its 4% 2011 growth.

Elanco Animal Health (the animal health division of Eli Lilly), widely regarded to lead the second tier of animal health multinationals, had an outstanding overall performance in 2012. This included revenue growth both within the US and externally. Elanco saw a 12% increase in final quarter ROW sales to $874m, which were driven, in part, by the 2011 acquisition of Janssen Animal Health. Meanwhile US sales quarter four revenues climbed 31% to $313.3m, overall contributing to the $2.04bn 2012 sales which have consolidated the company’s position in fourth place.

For Boehringer Ingelheim the success of their vaccine business within the emerging Asian markets drove 7.8% growth in the first half of 2012, with the company focusing particularly strongly on Ingelvac CircoFLEX, its Porcine Circovirus Associated Disease (PCVAD) vaccine. The growth trend within emerging markets and North America extended also to Bayer Healthcare. Their flea, tick and worm control product line, AdvantageTM , achieved sales gains of 25.1% with particular gains in North America.

Unfortunately for Novartis repercussions from the closure of their Lincoln US manufacturing facility, had a negative impact on their animal health business throughout 2012, with their full year revenues suffering a 16% reduction to $1.09bn.

For the French multinationals Virbac and Vetoquinol penetration of high growth regions in Asia and Latin America, along with strong growth in the US, triggered significant sales growth compared to 2011. For Virbac 11.5% growth (to €694.8m) was linked to substantial companion animal sales (+10.1%) and food producing products (+5.5%); supplemented by the acquisition of Chilean organisation, Centrovet and Stockguard in New Zealand. For Vetoquinol product range consolidation and new launches confirm a return to growth with a 16.4% increase in revenues in the Americas and 12.9% in Asia Pacific. Both organisations experienced strong headwind in European markets.

Ceva Santé Animale enjoyed a third consecutive year of double digit sales growth with revenues up 14% at €607.3m, placing them firmly in the top 10. The continued success is attributable to high growth in Russia (+26%), Turkey (+17%) and Mexico (18%), along with exploitation of a 10% growth in the market for Newcastle, Gumboro and Marek’s disease vaccines.

For the animal diagnostics business, IDEXX Laboratories continues to lead the pack, with 6% growth to revenues of $1.3bn largely driven by their companion animal group. Higher sales of its Catalyst Dx chemistry as well as increased sales price and volume in its reference laboratories were seen. For Abaxis, the US point-of-care blood testing company, new distribution relationships with Abbott POC and MWI veterinary supply is showing encouraging development (Q3 = +40% in sales). Finally, Neogen’s small animal supplements business increased significantly (Q2 = $24.7m), particularly due to thyroid hormone replacement therapy in dogs and sales of Uniprim antibiotic.

IPRIS provide competitive fee charges, at a fixed rate, along with direct and flexible expert client support. Clients include SMEs, universities, research institutes and patent attorney practices in the UK and internationally.

Check out the new IPRIS website at www.iprisglobal.com

We were welcomed by both the glowing Texas sunshine and a rousing introduction to the conference by prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Eric Ries. As the pioneer for The Lean Startup movement, he set the scene for the four-day meeting with his notions about the allocation of energy and resource for success in the start-up world. There followed multiple education and special interest plenary sessions where delegates shared experience and ideas about everything from licence negotiation techniques to novel application of IP to the animal health sector.

The vibrant one-to-one meeting culture and networking receptions saw us make very promising business development advancements for a number of our clients' technologies.

The latest version of IP Forecaster, whose branding has now been protected with a European Trademark, has a unique reporting system that produces patent budget forecasts with even greater accuracy. As well as full integration with any existing patent management software, IP Forecaster allows users to model on their existing portfolio and future patent filings in one report, and generate forecasts using a company's typical filing programme

It also has the function to merge costs from multiple business divisions into one forecast, and the flexibility to manipulate the data by currency, countries filed, patent status, milestones and date ranges.

It has been an exciting first 18 months for Patrafee UK following the company's launch in June 2011, with a series of major IP Forecaster client wins including international IP law firm Mintz Levin, UK IP law firms EIP and Brookes Batchellor, and large corporates Airbus, and Ford Motor Company.

CEO Adam Wylie said: "We have enjoyed strong growth during 2012 across the business as awareness of our USPs has grown. Clients love the new version of IP Forecaster for its flexibility and greater accuracy compared to other patent cost prediction software."

The AUTM Annual Meeting attracts the global community of technology transfer professionals from academia and industry for four days of workshops, seminars, and networking. This year's event takes place in San Antonio, Texas, from 27 February to 2 March.

Elaine Eggington, principal consultant, IP Pragmatics, and Sophie Brayne, marketing & business development manager, will be attending the Annual Meeting and will have a stand in the exhibition hall. For more information about the conference programme including the line-up of speakers, click here.

If you would like to meet Elaine or Sophie at AUTM 2013, please email Elaine.