UF incubator named 2013 Incubator of the Year

Congratulations to David Day, his team at UF’s Office of Technology Licensing, and the University of Florida on being named the 2013 Incubator of the Year, besting much larger competition from all around the globe.  The university’s OTL, Innovation Hub and incubator are vital parts of the hodge-podge of scientists, institutions and funding that make up Florida’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

We provide a few excerpts from the story below.  Click here for the complete list of 2013 NBIA Incubation Awards

The University of Florida’s Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator took top honors worldwide this week when it was named the 2013 Incubator of the Year by the National Business Incubation Association.

Incubator companies have attracted more than $1 billion in funding, and successes include the acquisition of incubated companies for $113 million, $98 million and $34 million. Since it opened in 1995, the incubator has had 28 companies graduate out of the facility or be acquired by other companies.

The UF incubator won one of two Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year awards for incubators with a technology focus, then went on to win the highest award, the Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year for overall excellence. In the process, it topped incubators more than twice its size, such as the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corp.

“It’s always special when the University of Florida can say one of its programs is the best in the world,” said David Day, director of the incubator and UF’s Office of Technology Licensing. “Today, we’re the best incubator in the world.”

 …the awards panel looks at an incubator’s record of success and whether it has the financial footing for future success. The panel also looks at whether the incubator uses best practices established by the NBIA, which serves more than 1,900 members in more than 60 nations.

Breedlove said the UF incubator owes its success in part to “a remarkably effective commercialization process at the University of Florida,” and to pioneers who saw the economic potential in UF expertise.

“We wouldn’t be here without the visionary thinkers at the University of Florida in the mid-1990s who created this program when really there was no role model for biotechnology incubation,” Breedlove said. “They gave us everything we needed to be a successful program.”

Day said the research generated by UF — the 12th largest public research university accounting for one-third of the academic research in Florida — fuels the incubator.