Marketing medical breakthroughs

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Loretta Tse's laboratory background, interest in early-stage technologies will help her shepherd lifesaving discoveries into patented products

Dr. Loretta Tse's science and business savvy enabled her to 'hit the ground running' in her new position as managing director, senior licensing associate for Fred Hutchinson's growing Industry Relations and Technology Transfer Office. Photo by Todd McNaught

Dr. Loretta Tse's resume makes no mention of her olfactory powers, but they are undoubtedly a big reason why she was hired as managing director/senior licensing associate for the Industry Relations and Technology Transfer Office. "I have a nose for good, commercializable technologies," Tse said.

Spencer Lemons, vice president for Industry Relations and Technology Transfer, knew right away Tse was a perfect choice to help Fred Hutchinson maximize the potential value — medically and commercially — of the intellectual property generated by its researchers. "What we needed was somebody who had experience working with early-stage technologies and with early-stage companies and Loretta has both of those things," Lemons said. "I'm just really thrilled she came here."

Tse, who arrived in January, is equally pleased to be at Fred Hutchinson. "The center is an exciting place to be because of all the cutting-edge research that goes on here," she said. "I love working with smart people and I feel that I have a lot to offer. Science is fun. I love to see innovation and the application of new technologies."

Skills and business savvy

As managing director, Tse is second in command of the nine-person Industry Relations and Technology Transfer Office behind Lemons. However, her primary focus is serving as the senior licensing associate, a task that draws on both her laboratory skills and business savvy to shepherd discoveries made at the center into the marketplace where they can begin benefiting patients.

"Loretta has a real interest in early-stage technology and a desire to see it be developed," Lemons said. "She has hit the ground running."

Before arriving at Fred Hutchinson, Tse spent three years as an associate at Oxford Bioscience Partners, an East Coast venture-capital fund that focuses on early-stage investments in the life sciences. At Oxford, Tse assessed the commercial potential of hundreds of early-stage companies seeking funding, but only a relative handful met the financial criteria — primarily a viable exit strategy — necessary to be considered potential investment opportunities. "I saw a lot of technologies that had promise, but we needed to be able to cash in our investment within a certain time frame and make a certain multiple of return on our investment," she said.

Three things led Tse to leave Oxford for Fred Hutchinson: the heavy travel schedule, the opportunity to return to the West Coast where most of her family lives and the desire to work with early-stage technologies.

"Venture capital is a great source of capital and there is a lot of value in working with knowledgeable firms, however, it is a very tough business and often times fostering and incubating the earliest new companies, sometimes called pre-startups, are not on the top of their list of things to do," she said. "Institutions like Fred Hutchinson are where early-stage research can receive the most support."

Research roots

Tse's path to her position at the center took a number of twists and turns. After earning a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from University of California-Davis, Tse planned to go to graduate school to become a pharmacist. However, before she enrolled, she accepted an internship at Genentech, a hugely successful biotech pioneer. "It was an exciting time at Genentech," she said. " It was amazing to see molecular biology at work, not to mention the teamwork and the entrepreneurial environment. I was like a kid in a candy store."

By the time the internship ended, Tse decided what she really wanted to do was become a laboratory scientist. After staying another year at Genentech, she returned to school, earning a doctorate in pharmacology and molecular sciences from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, where she conducted HIV research.

Tse's next stop — which led to her job with Oxford — was at a series of startup genomics companies. In the beginning, she focused on research, but as often happens at startups, she soon began wearing many hats. The one that ultimately fit best was business development. "I found that I really enjoyed working with numbers and meeting people outside the company," she said. "And since I had a scientific background, it gave me additional credibility."

The combination of experiences Tse brings to her job at Fred Hutchinson makes her well-qualified to determine whether a discovery is best patented, licensed and/or spun into a company — and if so help make that happen. Ultimately, however, it is up to the discoverer to decide whether to pursue a commercial path.

Communication is key

"At the end of the day, the researchers have complete control over their intellectual property," Tse said. "It's up to them to decide whether they want to publish their research and share it freely with others or whether they want to work with us to protect, develop and commercialize it."

Tse hopes to hear from scientists as early in the discovery process as possible so that any results with commercial potential can be protected by patents and thus have an opportunity to be developed into a product that benefits patients as well provides a return to Fred Hutchinson and the researcher. "It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a drug and no manufacturer is going to want to spend that kind of money if the intellectual property is not protected from competitors," Tse said. "There's often a small window of time to act. If you wait too long or tell others about it too soon, it's difficult to protect."

Right, now, Fred Hutchinson has a "limited portfolio" of commercialized technologies, but Tse expects that to change. "There's a lot of great research going on here," she said. "For someone who loves early-stage technology, this is a great place to be."

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