Oklahoma State University research is built on the promise that discoveries should serve the people and solve real-world problems. However, a scientific breakthrough only changes lives if it reaches the users and communities that need it most.

That is where Cowboy Enterprises comes in.

Housed within OSU’s Office of the Vice President for Research, Cowboy Enterprises bridges the gap between research and commercialization. Through intellectual property protection, commercialization support and startup development, the unit helps transform discoveries into technology-based products, services and companies that improve lives and fuel economic growth.

That is the land-grant mission in action.

“We help OSU researchers span the valley of death from early stage innovations to commercial outcomes,” said Daniel Will, executive director of Cowboy Innovations Accelerator and Cowboy Technologies LLC within Cowboy Enterprises. “That means protecting and maturing technologies to a point where either established companies are ready to license, or fundable startup companies are launched. It’s ultimately about bringing technologies to market that provide value to customers.”

Faculty, staff and student researchers often arrive at Cowboy Enterprises with an invention born from years of research.

Cowboy Enterprises is home to three units that aid those researchers every step of the way.

The Office of Technology Commercialization helps determine how to best protect the OSU IP through patents, trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks for licensed commercialization through companies or startups.

The no-cost, no-equity Cowboy Innovations Accelerator is designed to help advance innovation-based, proof-of-concept and lab-bench technologies toward venture-backable startup companies.

Cowboy Technologies is the for-profit new venture arm of OSU. Cowboy Technologies makes returns-based investments in internal OSU technology development projects and growth startups affiliated with OSU, including those licensing OSU IP.

Those three pathways have helped move several OSU innovations from lab to market.

One example is Plasma Bionics, a Stillwater-based company developing Air Plasma Sterilization technology for veterinary instrument sterilization.

The company traces its roots to an interdisciplinary research collaboration at OSU, where faculty and graduate students from engineering and plant pathology created a technology that uses air plasma as a sterilization method.

“When we started out, this was part of a CIE Scholars program at OSU where three MBA graduates used our technology as a case study for its commercialization potential,” said Kedar Pai, president and co-founder of Plasma Bionics.

With the idea in mind, they asked, “Why not do it ourselves?”

Kedar partnered with multiple OSU departments, including Chris Timmons, a Ph.D. student in plant pathology phytopathology, and began prototyping to develop a successful medical device sterilization process.

“The gold standard sterilization method is an autoclave, which uses steam and heat to kill everything, but plastics and rubbers are damaged in high heat,” said Timmons, now Plasma Bionics vice president of research and development. “The method that’s been used for a long time for low-temperature sterilization is ethylene oxide, which is a gas, but it’s a carcinogenic gas, and it takes 12 to 24 hours for a cycle to complete.”

The team’s research eventually led to the company’s first commercial product, the V10 Air Plasma Sterilizer, followed by a larger V20 Air Plasma Sterilizer designed for veterinarians with larger medical instruments. These products sterilize instruments using low temperatures in four hours or less, using just air and electricity as the input.

Today, Plasma Bionics products are being used by veterinary professionals nationwide and in Canada, but getting there required more than scientific expertise.

Cowboy Enterprises helped the company navigate intellectual property protection, establish its business structure, secure early funding and pursue commercialization grants. Those early investments helped position Plasma Bionics to attract additional funding and eventually exceed $1 million in annual sales.

“The key milestone was getting the seed investment, where OSU came into the picture,” Pai said. “They gave us the initial seed investment through Cowboy Technologies, and having sponsored research to show the commercialization potential of the technology had given us a good foundation. Then, we were able to secure OCAST grants, demonstrate the technology and ultimately approach the market.”

For Pai, Cowboy Enterprises filled critical knowledge gaps beyond engineering.

“On the IP side, we didn’t know how to protect the technology,” he said. “Having the space and assistance from OSU to develop the technology and follow through the commercialization side, all of the things seasoned investors want to see, was extremely helpful.”

At the OSU Research Park in Stillwater, another startup is addressing one of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. “Forever chemicals,” or PFAS, are man-made chemicals that do not naturally break down and end up in our environment and waters.

Weaver Labs is commercializing technology designed to remove PFAS from water.

Developed by the research of Dr. Jimmie Weaver, an OSU chemistry professor and Weaver Labs’ chief technology officer, the product selectively captures PFAS contaminants more effectively than conventional treatment methods while reducing operational costs.

“We developed a technology that we think is the world’s most effective PFAS removal technology,” said Marten Hillen, Weaver Labs’ CEO. “It’s up to eight times better than current methods at about half of the operational cost.”

PFAS compounds are used in countless consumer and industrial products because of their durability, but that same durability allows them to persist in the environment and accumulate over time. Increasing concerns about their health impacts have created an urgent need for better water treatment technologies.

To tackle this challenge, Weaver Labs developed remediation technology and is partnering with major water technology providers that integrate the company’s technology into their treatment systems serving communities worldwide.

“Our impact is global,” Hillen said. “We’re collaborating with large water technology providers in the U.S. and Europe. At the same time, we’re growing the company here in Stillwater and hiring talent from Oklahoma State. We provide a path toward global impact right here in town.”

For Hillen, Cowboy Enterprises represents an increasingly important role on behalf of modern R-1 research universities.

“I see applied research changing,” he said. “There’s much more emphasis on practical implications. How do we unlock this knowledge to directly benefit our communities? Cowboy Technologies should continue growing because that role is becoming increasingly important.”

These two startup companies may be different, but their journeys share a common thread: Commercialization extends the economic impact of OSU research beyond the campus lab.

Photos by:  Ellie Piper and Eric Priddy |  Research Matters Magazine