With the pop of a champagne cork, UPEI toasted a new licensing agreement between the university and Charlottetown-based Nautilus Biosciences Canada.
The licensing agreement is a first for the university and gives Nautilus access to the process needed to ferment bacteria found in coral to produce compounds known as pseudopterosins, which have anti-inflammatory properties.
UPEI’s vice-president of research and development, Katherine Schultz, said the university has seen an increase in research done at the school, which has led to the new licensing agreement.
“It’s a new milestone for the university.”
UPEI chemistry professor and Nautilus CEO Russell Kerr has been working to develop the process to produce the compounds on a scale large enough for commercial use.
“It’s a new milestone for the university,” - Katherine Schultz
The university owns the rights to the process and licensed it Nautilus through Three Oaks Innovations, which is a not-for-profit company UPEI started to help commercialize technology developed at the school.
Schultz said UPEI has seen a 600 per cent increase in research over the last 10 years and they licensed the process to Nautilus because the university’s role is to make discoveries, not profits.
“The university isn’t poised to develop things on a commercial scale,” she said.
