Welcome back to The Pulse, your monthly guide to exciting technology transfer opportunities from federal labs. Whether you're looking for a new product or service idea or are ready to partner with a lab to develop something exciting, we're here to help!
We're diving into cooperative R&D agreements and their benefits for small businesses, exploring technology licensing opportunities from the U.S. Army, and breaking down data from our Innovation Performance Study and what it means for you.
A Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, commonly referenced by the acronym CRADA, is a written agreement between a government laboratory and a private party to work together on the research and development of new technologies.
CRADAs are valuable for small businesses for several reasons. They offer:
Greater access to R&D facilities and specialized equipment through federal laboratories.
Relationships with lab researchers and personnel.
The opportunity to develop new intellectual property.
A wider net of talents through collaboration and combined knowledge, skills, and experience of all parties.
Interaction and idea sharing that can be put to use in other work, providing new perspectives and insights that advance technologies.
Confidential collaboration for up to five years, minimizing the fear of work being disclosed to others, including competitors.
Are you looking to launch a new product or solve a technical challenge? Technologies from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) could be the breakthrough that moves your business to the next level.
The Army has several novel inventions in medicine, advanced materials, and manufacturing that are ready for licensing and commercialization, including:
A biofabrication method for producing porous scaffolds from bacterial cellulose. This method avoids harsh chemicals and leads to new uses in synthetic textiles, biomedical products, and smart materials.
A cemented carbide material that produces a safer and less-expensive alternative to cobalt for critical applications.
Contactless fabrication of 3D parts using laser folding. Also known as "origami manufacturing," the process allows rapid prototyping of design concepts during product development of switches, actuators, and printed circuit board components.
The DNA Enhanced Transfer Platform makes genetic engineering tools more widely available, allowing biotech sectors to experiment using previously inaccessible microbial species.
Enhanced antibiotic efficacy with FDA-approved sugar acids to treat antibiotic resistance. Researchers have developed an approach that enhances infection-fighting abilities of amphenicol antibiotics, which can potentially reduce doses and related side effects.
Would one of these be beneficial for your business? Browse the technology opportunities in full that are available for immediate licensing and see how TechLink can help you with the process.
In our second R&D Innovation Performance Study we interviewed executives across industries to learn more about emerging trends in innovation and how companies deploy best practices when they develop new products and services.
A key takeaway: Partnering with government labs often leads to better performance.
The percentage of respondents finding inspiration from government laboratories more than tripled from 2022 to 2024. Even more, companies that collaborate with government labs are more likely than peers to post better performance for nearly every innovation metric.
Turning ideas into budgeted projects, generating sales from R&D projects, hitting sales targets, posting higher net profit margins, and creating new ideas—they're all within reach when companies collaborate with federal laboratories.
Dig into more data and discover how you can improve your innovation capabilities.
