The University of Manchester’s award winning intellectual property company (UMIP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Sharon O’ Kane as its Entrepreneur in Residence. Sharon will be engaging in an advisory role with UMIP to enhance the University’s spin-out company and licensing activities and to encourage intellectual property entrepreneurship at the University.
Sharon, who was recently named as Bionow / NWDA Biomedical Personality of the Year 2009, and was the Entrepreneur of the Year at the inaugural Northwest Women in Business Awards 2008, is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of University of Manchester spin-out company Renovo. Renovo Group plc is a biopharmaceutical company developing drugs for the reduction of scarring and has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2006.
Sharon said that she is looking forward to using the business skills and networks that she has developed from her involvement in the commercialisation of University-based research which led to the creation of Renovo and to raising the profile of entrepreneurship at the University. Sharon commented: “I am very pleased to have been asked to advise the University in this capacity. The University already has an excellent track record in innovation and entrepreneurship, with many successful spin-out companies. When I announced in September that I will move on from Renovo next February, I said I wanted to use my experience to help start and build companies, and this advisory role with UMIP is one in which I can immediately contribute and help UMIP continue to be successful in meeting its goals of creating spin-out companies, licensing IP and making an important contribution to the economy.”
Clive Rowland, UMIP’s CEO, said that he was delighted that Sharon had agreed to accept the appointment. “We are very much looking forward to working with Sharon. We have some specific ambitious funding initiatives in mind with which Sharon is ideally suited to help us. We are also asking Sharon to assist in improving our effectiveness and our success rate in drug discovery licensing.”
Dr Sharon O' Kane
Technology Transfer; IP commercialisation | 
