Last year was not a financially rewarding one for Otago Innovation Ltd, the University of Otago company supporting the commercialisation of research by university staff.
Otago Innovation had been expected to return about $1 million from royalties and intellectual property sales from research ideas developed by university staff.
Instead, the result was $100,000, a report to the university council said.
Revenue from the company was $1.2 million in 2006 and $1.1 million in 2007.
This year is not shaping up to be any better for Otago Innovation.
It was budgeted to return a surplus of $258,000, but last month that figure was revised downwards to a $745,000 loss.
No-one at the university would comment on the reasons for the decline in Otago Innovation's fortunes.
Neither Otago Innovation chief executive Colin Dawson nor university research and enterprise deputy vice-chancellor Prof Harlene Hayne would be interviewed by the Otago Daily Times.
In a statement, Prof Hayne said it was "early days" for commercialisation activity at the University of Otago and Otago Innovation.
Overall, external income for research at the University of Otago had increased for 2008, and commercial contracts translating research findings into new ideas and know-how contributed significantly to that increase.
In addition, there were more than 30 ideas and inventions evaluated during the year to determine whether patent protection should be sought.
"Given the nature of the intellectual property generated by researchers at Otago, it is likely that it will take many years for these ideas to become financially successful. Data collected from universities around the world have shown that high-risk, slow-to-develop technologies like that generated from biomedical research typically takes between five and 20 years to reach the marketplace," Prof Hayne said.
For example, she said, it took 15 years for enterprise activities at Stanford University, which was central to the success of the computer microchip manufacturing companies based in California's Silicon Valley, to break even financially.
