WARF bets big on new squad of drug hunters

WARF Therapeutics wants to put biological discoveries at UW-Madison on the fast track to patenting, licensing and use in the clinic. Photo by David Tenenbaum As it nears its 100th birthday, WARF - the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the nation's first university technology transfer office - is embarking on a bold program to modernize what it has done so well, and so profitably, in past decades: advance basic discoveries from campus to the clinic and the patient. WARF Therapeutics, unveiled last week at a meeting on campus, will help UW-Madison investigators deal with a difficult reality: Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to license newly discovered biological entities (more commonly called "targets"), such as proteins or genes, that are instrumental in disease. These targets, says Jon Young, head of WARF Therapeutics, are "nature," and so not patentable. Instead, pharma needs unique molecules that can be protected by patents. Jon Young, director of WARF Therapeutics, chats with associate professor of oncology Yongna Xing at the Discover building on the UW-Madison campus Thursday, Feb. Photo credit: WARF And while getting and licensing patents has been WARF's stock-in-trade since the start, the steps needed to get patents, prove that a particular chemical has therapeutic potential, and earn Food and Drug Administration approval, have all gotten more complex, lengthy and expensive.