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The University of Utah ranks among the top 10 U.S. universities in several key research commercialization measures, based on data from the AUTM 2025 Annual Survey.
Research commercialization moves discoveries beyond the lab and into the world through products, treatments, services, licenses, and startups. The U’s performance is especially notable because it is achieving results comparable to larger research institutions while operating with a smaller research expenditure base, a sign of the strength and efficiency of Utah’s innovation ecosystem.
The U placed among the nation’s leaders in five key measures:
- No. 5 in invention disclosures: New discoveries submitted by faculty, researchers, and students for potential protection or commercialization.
- No. 5 in licenses executed: Agreements that allow external partners to use or commercialize university-developed technologies.
- No. 4 in copyright licenses: Licenses covering software, data, educational materials, creative works, and other tangible property.
- No. 9 in gross license income: Revenue from licensing activity, including royalties and equity-related returns.
- No. 3 in new licensed technologies: Technologies licensed to external partners for the first time.
A growing pipeline, built for impact
The survey results highlight both the U’s current performance and its potential for continued growth. The university’s research enterprise is expanding, creating a larger pipeline of discoveries with the potential to reach the marketplace and benefit the public.
As research activity grows, it can generate more ideas, invention disclosures, partnerships, licenses, and startups—strengthening the U’s ability to shape industries and improve lives.
“These benchmarks reflect the strength of the University of Utah’s innovation ecosystem and the faculty, researchers, and partners who help move discoveries toward real-world impact,” said Jason Young, senior director of commercialization.
The AUTM survey results add to a series of national recognitions for the University of Utah’s innovation ecosystem. The U has also recently been named among the top 100 universities globally for U.S. utility patents, No. 1 for producing unicorn founders, and recognized as one of the nation’s top universities for biomedical innovation. Together, these distinctions reflect growing momentum across the university’s innovation pipeline.
That impact can be seen in examples from the past year:
- Propelling clean energy: Geothermal Strategy Partners helps developers plan and build next-generation geothermal projects.
- Helping bones heal: The CoAptix S system keeps steady pressure on healing bones, helping reduce complications and support recovery.
- Cutting electronic waste: EnduraCure is developing flexible electronics materials that can be broken down so valuable parts can be recovered instead of discarded.
- Improving EV charging: Grid Elevated’s IntelliCharge platform uses AI to balance charging demand, helping make EV infrastructure more reliable, efficient, and scalable.
- Fighting brain cancer: CaLycia Bioscience is developing engineered immune-cell therapies designed to target aggressive brain and spine cancers from within.
What the results mean for Utah
For faculty and researchers, the results point to more opportunities to translate discoveries into practical applications. For industry partners and investors, they signal access to a strong environment for bringing research discoveries to market. For the state, they demonstrate the University of Utah’s growing role in building Utah’s innovation economy.
As the U’s research enterprise expands, so does its capacity to turn discovery into public benefit, economic growth, and solutions to pressing challenges. The 2025 AUTM survey results show that the university’s commercialization efforts are already performing at a national level—and are positioned to make an even greater impact in the years ahead.
The big picture: University of Utah spinout Epitel has closed a $26 million Series B financing round to expand access to its wireless, AI-assisted electroencephalography technology.
The round was co-led by Catalyst Health Ventures and Genoa Ventures, with participation from new and existing investors. Epitel will use the funding to grow its commercial team, accelerate provider adoption and expand deployment of its REMI Remote EEG Monitoring System. Business Wire
Born at the U: Epitel was founded by Mark Lehmkuhle while he was a research assistant professor in the University of Utah Department of Neurosurgery. The Salt Lake City-based company grew from U research focused on making brain monitoring more practical and accessible.
How it works: Epitel’s REMI platform uses small, wearable sensors to record brain activity without tethering patients to conventional EEG equipment. Its AI-assisted software can flag potential seizure events for clinician review, while the wireless system allows monitoring to continue at home and during everyday activities for days or weeks. The technology has received five FDA 510(k) clearances and can be used for neurological monitoring in patients as young as one year old. Business Wire
Why it matters for patients
Seizures can be rare, unpredictable and difficult to capture during a traditional EEG appointment. Epitel says 40% of the 9.2 million Americans who experience seizures each year lack access to EEG, while many hospitals do not have EEG capabilities. Business Wire
Longer-term monitoring could give clinicians more opportunities to capture objective evidence of seizure activity—without requiring patients to remain in a hospital or navigate cumbersome wired equipment. For patients and families, that could mean a more comfortable monitoring experience, faster answers and broader access to neurological care, particularly outside major medical centers.
What’s next: Epitel plans to expand its sales, marketing and customer-experience teams while helping more health systems incorporate REMI into clinical workflows. The new capital positions the company to bring a U-developed innovation to more providers—and potentially more patients—across the country.
Read the full funding announcement.
Interested in launching a startup based on U of U Research? Explore the faculty startup guide →
CAR-T therapy equips a patient’s immune cells to recognize and attack cancer, but those cells can become exhausted, die too quickly or cause serious side effects. University of Utah spinout NanoKar Therapeutics is developing a way to fine-tune existing CAR-T treatments so the cells can last longer and work more effectively. The company hopes its technology can improve a wide range of therapies being developed for blood cancers and solid tumors.
Where Current CAR-T Treatments Fall Short
CAR-T therapy begins by collecting a patient’s T cells, a type of immune cell, and engineering them to recognize a specific marker on cancer cells. The modified cells are then returned to the patient, where they seek out and attack the cancer.
Although CAR-T therapies can be powerful, the engineered cells do not always remain effective for long. They can become overactive, causing them to wear out or die too soon. That overactivation can also trigger a powerful immune response that leads to serious side effects.
CAR-T therapies have been most successful against certain blood cancers. Solid tumors present additional challenges because engineered immune cells may have difficulty entering the tumor and remaining active within the tumor environment.
Finding Ways to Optimize the System
NanoKar is developing a technology designed to address these challenges by adjusting the signals inside CAR-T cells that control how strongly they respond. By fine-tuning those signals, the company aims to help the cells remain active longer without becoming dangerously overactivated.
The approach focuses on structures inside immune cells known as immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs, or ITAMs, which help control how strongly the cells respond. In most existing CAR-T therapies, these motifs are part of a commonly used signaling component called the CD3 zeta chain. NanoKar is developing alternative ITAM configurations within that component, with the goal of giving researchers greater control over the strength and duration of a CAR-T cell’s activity.
The company’s early research has shown encouraging results, suggesting the technology may produce CAR-T cells with greater persistence, reduced signs of exhaustion and lower toxicity. NanoKar is also evaluating whether the platform can improve CAR-T performance against solid tumors, one of the field's most significant unmet needs.
NanoKar is at the preclinical stage of research, having performed in vivo and in vitro research on cancer cells. It is conducting pre-IND work to file an Investigational New Drug Application and proceed to Phase I trials.
A Technology That Could Strengthen Many CAR-T Therapies
Rather than creating a single cancer therapy, NanoKar is developing a platform that can integrate with existing CAR-T programs.
The company plans to strategically partner with or license its technology to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies already developing CAR-based therapies, allowing partners to evaluate different NanoKar ITAM configurations to identify the optimal design for their specific cancer target.
Because the platform is intended to complement—not replace—existing CAR-T technologies, NanoKar views established CAR-T developers as strategic partners rather than competitors.
For pharmaceutical companies, the technology could improve treatment efficacy and safety, generate additional intellectual property opportunities and potentially expand CAR-T therapies into new cancer indications.
Turning Laboratory Research Into a Startup
NanoKar grew from research led by University of Utah pathology professor Dr. Matthew Bettini. Early support from the Department of Pathology helped his lab generate the data needed to pursue additional funding, including a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
As the research progressed, Bettini realized its potential extended well beyond a single cancer target.
“We knew that this research had much broader potential,” Bettini said. “If this could work with other tumor antigens and specificities, then it could be widely applied to the field of cancer research.”
The company's long-term vision is to help make CAR-based therapies safer, more durable and more clinically effective by enabling engineered immune cells to persist longer and continue attacking cancer. If successful across multiple CAR-T platforms, the technology could expand access to these lifesaving therapies for many more patients.
“These companies are individually making their products more efficacious,” Bettini said. “At the end of the day, we would like to see this technology help cure cancer patients and get survival as high as possible across all the applications.”
Moving From Research to Commercialization
As a University of Utah researcher, Bettini encountered new challenges when he began turning the technology into a company.
“As a bench scientist, all you’re thinking about is basic research and the next experiment,” Bettini said. “You’re not trained at all to think like a businessperson.”
The University of Utah’s Technology Licensing Office helped Bettini protect the intellectual property, understand the licensing process and identify resources for moving the technology toward the market. He said contacting the office early was critical to making the research more translational.
Through that work, Bettini connected with Craig Mosman, who joined as CEO of NanoKar. Together, they have refined the company's commercialization strategy and expanded opportunities to validate the platform across multiple cancer types.
“We believe that the most effective way to get this treatment to the most patients in the shortest period of time is to strategically partner with one or more pharmaceutical companies that already have CAR-T programs,” Mosman said.
NanoKar is now raising funding to hire additional employees, accelerate its research, develop new intellectual property and prepare for studies needed before the technology could advance toward human clinical trials. The team’s next goal is to demonstrate that the approach can improve multiple CAR-based therapies, helping position the technology for partnerships that could ultimately bring it to patients.
