Max Planck celebrates 50 years of technology transfer

With guests from politics and science, Max Planck Innovation (MI) was celebrating 50 years of successful technology transfer yesterday in Berlin, after a two-year, pandemic-related, delay. Since the Max Planck subsidiary was founded in 1970, the company has supported more than 4,800 inventions and around 180 company spin-offs, as well as concluding more than 2,900 exploitation agreements. "These science-based spin-offs have created more than 9,250 skilled jobs and contributed to Germany's innovative strength as a business location with their products and services. It fills us with pride to have supported and accompanied very many of these spin-offs in the pre-seed and start-up phase," says Ulrich Mahr, member of the management board at MI.

While MI's focus has long been on pure patent exploitation, it is now shifting "toward supporting young founders who want to build their own companies out of the MPG," as Max Planck President Martin Stratmann explains. "A shift from purely monetary success to investing in minds - something that's actually much more in line with our thinking." MI's latest initiative that pays into this is the startup incubation program MAX!mize, launched this year, for which the Max Planck Society will provide four million euros a year when it is fully developed. The Max Planck Society accompanied one of the participating teams from the MPI for Informatics from the​ first round with the camera.

​​The highlight of the anniversary celebration was a panel discussion with Nobel Laureate Stefan Hell (MPI for Multidisciplinary Natural Sciences), Peter H. Seeberger (MPI for Colloids and Interfaces) and Christian Theobalt (MPI for Computer Science) - all three directors are also company founders. They had a discussion with Andrea Frank, Deputy Secretary General and Member of the Executive Board of the Stifterverband.

Start-up ideas are highly welcome

The film accompanies the Oraclase team on its path to spin-off. The team from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics successfully applied to the MAX!mize incubation programme of Max Planck Innovation

In the context of an exhibition, 15 companies supported by Max Planck Innovation that were founded on the basis of Max Planck technologies will also present themselves: abberior in​struments, Batene, Cardior Pharmaceuticals, Dewpoint Therapeutics, Evotec, Lead Discovery Center, Lipotype, Menlo Systems, Meshcapade, MODAG, QLi5, Scienion, Tacalyx, Targenomix, terraplasma and Thermosome.

This article was first published on 15 December by Max Planck Society.