Fiscal year 2025, the University of Arizona breaks record (again) for impactful inventions

Tech Launch Arizona (TLA) has announced that in fiscal year 2025, the University of Arizona broke the university’s previous record for reported inventions, making this its most inventive year for the second year in a row. This past year saw the university community generate 324 invention disclosures, up from the 2024 record of 307. 

“We measure the university’s inventiveness and engagement by invention disclosures,” said TLA Associate Vice President Doug Hockstad. “Each time an employee – whether they’re a faculty member, researcher, graduate student or other staff member – comes to our team with an invention, they fill out a simple form, and that’s when the commercialization process begins.”

Tech Launch Arizona (TLA) is the University of Arizona office responsible for commercializing these inventions. This entails researching the patent and market landscape of each innovation, protecting intellectual property, marketing to potential licensees, and licensing to existing companies or launching startups to bring them forward into the marketplace. 

Along with a record level of invention disclosures, TLA also had 94 patents issued, and executed 86 licenses and options. Those licenses generate royalties, which are dollars that come back to the university each time a licensee sells a product. In fiscal year 2025, U of A inventions generated $12.1 million in royalties and other income, including from the acquisition of U of A startup Neuro-ID by global credit firm Experian. 

Neuro-ID was launched based on a fraud detection technology invented by Eller College of Management MIS professor Joseph Valacich and his PhD student at the time, Jeff Jenkins, who is now a professor at Brigham Young University. The startup is a prime example of how ideas stemming from research can develop into impactful, helpful businesses. 

“Transforming research into societal benefit requires more than great ideas, it demands trusted partnerships and a shared commitment to progress,” said Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, senior vice president for research and partnerships. “Arizona’s momentum reflects a deep collaboration across the university and with external partners who help bring discoveries to life in ways that strengthen communities, fuel economic vitality, and create lasting public value.”

A venue for launching student ventures

Also in 2025, TLA inaugurated Startup Wildcats. Led by director Derick Maggard and a small team of experienced student entrepreneurship experts, Startup Wildcats provided a resource for students who wanted to experience hands-on entrepreneurship and engage in launching their own startups. 

“It just made sense,” said Maggard. “With TLA being the center for expertise and resources to help faculty launch startups, it was the perfect place and time to advance programs to help undergraduates cultivate their entrepreneurial aspirations, as well.” 

Over the past year, Startup Wildcats worked with more than 80 student-led ventures and awarded over $20,000 in milestone funding to help teams advance ideas ranging from aquaponics technologies and wellness spaces to AI-driven healthcare solutions. The initiative drew students from across campus, fueling an increasingly vibrant culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Looking ahead, the focus is evolving. With a rich history of student entrepreneurship at the U of A and a growing number of programs emerging from the McGuire Center, College of Engineering, and Honors College, TLA is shifting its efforts to support technology-driven ventures aligned with the university’s strategic research strengths. This next chapter will emphasize working with graduate students to translate university intellectual property into market-ready startups. The aim is to continue to generate high-impact ventures that create jobs, drive economic growth, and strengthen Arizona’s innovation economy.

“Startup Wildcats demonstrated the power of student-driven entrepreneurship to energize our campus and spark new ideas,” said Díaz de la Rubia. “Building on that success, we’re now uniting TLA’s undergraduate initiatives with broader campus programs to focus more intentionally on engaging students in deep tech ventures grounded in university discoveries.”

13 startups launched

“Every single license is an important milestone in getting these raw technologies to market,” said Hockstad. “But when new companies are founded to bring inventions to market, not only do new technologies find a path to market, but also these new companies create jobs and economic impact for our community and our state.” 

TLA worked with faculty and students to launch 13 startups in the past year based on inventions ranging from therapies for cancer to high-fidelity wearables to monitor patient health to solar towers designed for drying food waste, all of which are listed below.

• Rebuild After Stroke, founded to empower stroke survivors on their journey to recovery with educational content and practical assistance, developed by Kristian Doyle, College of Medicine – Tucson and the BIO5 Institute. 

• Lifespan Digital Health, helping to solve physician shortages by preventing healthcare provider burnout, based on the research of Dr. Samuel Keim, College of Medicine – Tucson. 

• Aging Health Sciences, a research-driven nutraceutical company specializing in eye health, founded to bring to market nutraceuticals developed by ophthalmologist Dr. Robert Snyder and Brian McKay, professor in the College of Medicine – Tucson. 

• DBXL, providing educational materials that build learners’ finance, data analytics and critical thinking skills, developed by associate professor David Brown in the Eller College of Management. 

• ProxyBio, Inc., helping pharmaceutical companies and physicians identify the most effective therapies through an innovative, high-volume compound screening platform, invented in the College of Medicine – Tucson and the BIO5 Institute by assistant research professor Kelvin Pond, associate professor Curtis Thorne, associate professor Samuel Campos and Elaheh Alizadeh, a former postdoctoral research associate.

• Voices Unheard, a startup formed to market a documentary film made in the College of Agriculture, Life & Environmental Sciences (CALES) about groundwater pollution by documentary filmmaker and entrepreneur Sandra Westdahl,who earned her Bachelor of Arts from the U of A's School of Journalism.  

• Branch Therapeutics, Inc., advancing therapies based on multi-targeted kinase inhibitors to address metastatic cancer, based on innovations developed at the College of Medicine – Tucson, and the College of Science, by professor Christopher Hulme, associate professor Curtis Thorne and Sr. lecturer at the University of Dundee Sourav Banerjee, with former graduate student Nathan Bedard, PhD candidate at Case Western Reserve University Carly Rose Stoll (BS, applied mathematics, ’18), SRC chemist Alessandra Fistrovich (PhD, organic chemistry/medicinal chemistry, ’24), and former research scientist Yeng Jeng Shaw.

• Aspiro Therapeutics, Inc., advancing disease-modifying therapies that target the underlying mechanisms of conditions like asthma and COPD, developed by associate professor Julie Ledford, associate professor Michael D. L. Johnson, associate research professor Josef Vagner, and professor Stefano Guerra, College of Medicine – Tucson and the BIO5 Institute. 

• Senhponix, Inc., bringing to market wearable technologies that capture high-fidelity physiological data for an uninterrupted, automated view of patient health, developed in the College of Engineering and the BIO5 Institute by associate professor Philipp Gutruf; Tucker Stewart, a senior research and development engineer with medical device company CVRx who earned his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the U of A in 2023; and Kevin Kasper, a doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering.

• iMagine Design, harnessing diagnostic intelligence to allow clinicians to correlate symptoms with changes in mobility to help care providers make treatment and intervention decisions, invented by professor Janet Roveda and associate professor Kavan Hazeli of the College of Engineering and the BIO5 Institute, with UCLA professor Emeritus Bahram Jalali, global professor Xuejing Wang, and Hill’s Nutrition Associate Scientist Rylie Watson (former UA graduate research assistant). 

• Kuairu, advancing a design for a solar tower for large-scale drying of food waste, invented by professor Goggy Davidowitz, CALES. 

• Respiradigm, advancing a new risk assessment test for asthma development at birth, developed by Regents Professor Dr. Fernando Martinez and professor Dean Billheimer, College of Medicine – Tucson and the BIO5 Institute. 

• VerdiTx, developing technologies to harness green light as a therapy for managing pain, invented by Dr. Mohab Ibrahim, professor of anesthesiology, and University of Florida Professor Rajesh Khanna, formerly with the UA. 

Seed fund to help startups enters impact phase

Startups like those above are most vulnerable to failure in their early months and years. They face what is known as the “valley of death,” which is that time when young companies are trying to get their businesses up and running and often lack the capital to stay afloat. 

To help these early-stage startups, TLA launched the Wildcat Philanthropic Seed Fund (WPSF) in 2024. Unlike a traditional investment fund, the WPSF is funded through philanthropy. However, investments, typically the first money these nascent startups will raise, are standard dilutive investments with any earnings resulting from mergers or acquisitions reinvested back into the fund, creating an evergreen source for UA-affiliated startups.

In 2025, the WPSF reached its initial fundraising goal of $2 million and began accepting applications for investments. 

“It’s truly exciting to see the whole of the commercialization pipeline functioning so strongly,” said Hockstad. “From the pace of invention disclosures to the launch and success of our startup pipeline to those companies starting to reap the benefits of the Seed Fund, we’re in a time of growth both here at the U of A and throughout the ecosystem.”

Look for all of the results and biggest stories of fiscal year 2025 to be released in TLA’s upcoming annual report, to be released this fall.