BusinessTN

It could be said that Memphis fertility specialist Billy Kutteh's story falls into the category of "could of, should of, would of" been entrepreneurs--people (in this case a physician) with a novel discovery on their hands (in this case a lubricant) but for whom thoughts of commercialization didn't instinctively arise.

For Kutteh, that's all changing now.

Roughly six million U.S. couples have medically defined infertility. Annually, around nine million women see a physician about fertility problems. Studies, including some of the earliest that were published by Kutteh himself, have revealed one root cause of infertility problems is the use of commercial lubricants.

"Most couples who are trying to get pregnant and for whatever reason use a lubricant when they have sex, just go in the store and buy whatever they see--K-Y Jelly, Astroglide, Replens, whatever," says Kutteh, who co-owns the clinical practice Fertility Associates of Memphis, the largest practice of its kind in a 150-mile radius. "And the overwhelming majority of those are toxic to sperm."

"Toxic," Kutteh says, meaning they reduce sperm motility within minutes of exposure.

As most infertile couples can tell you, there are various products already on store shelves that promote being non-toxic to sperm. Though others had performed studies on the topic before him, Kutteh's work, first published while he was based in Texas in 1996, was by far the most comprehensive of its day. "We agree that they used our research and ran with it," Kutteh says of some of the lubricants on the market today. "In fact, the info booklets of the products used our graphs and our data in their brochures."

So while Kutteh the doctor was dispensing samples of his non-toxic alternative to patients (and enjoying great success with his clientele, he reports), others of a more entrepreneurial bent were busy taking similar products to market.

"If I had done something in 1996, I'd be sitting in my easy chair right now," Kutteh says. "But I didn't. It's just like everybody who says I wish I'd done this, or I wish I'd done that. But, you know, I'm primarily a physician. I'm not into developing product."

Today Kutteh, founder of Memphis-based Reproductive Lab, is playing catch-up. For several years, Kutteh has worked with Boston-based Sepal Reproductive Devices to help establish the quality of products ranging from ovulation kits to catheters used to transfer embryos during in-vitro fertilization. Recently, he introduced Sepal decision-makers to his unnamed lubricant, which at the time, he and his office associates referred to as "Ferti-Lube." A partnership was soon struck to package, market and distribute the renamed ConceivEase nationally. "They are currently working on getting it placed in a large national establishment where in any city in the nation you'll be able to walk in and pick it up," Kutteh reports, though he stops short of saying which establishment.

David Schwartz, executive editor of Naples, Fla.-based Technology Transfer Tactics, a monthly advisor on best practices in technology transfer, says physicians are often slower to see their intellectual property for its commercial value than researchers or scientists.

"Physicians are famous tinkerers. A lot of devices and advances in medicine come from the physicians themselves," Schwartz says. "I guess the question is, do they have the know-how or the willingness and the mindset to be an entrepreneur, as well."

According to Schwartz, hospital systems nationally have increasingly created technology transfer commercialization and innovation offices to help their own physician researchers develop and market their inventions.

"Hospitals have certainly caught on," Schwartz says. "There are dozens of example of hospitals with their own tech transfer offices and licensing professionals and people whose job it is to seek out their physicians' innovations and work toward commercializing them."

ConceivEase could be one of Tennessee's business success stories in the coming years. Until then, Kutteh, who now also serves as director of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the UT Health Science Center in Memphis, plans to do what he does best--serve the needs of his patients with his formula.