An all-woman team of inventors opens up a path through Turkey’s ladders of IP support to put their skin patch on the shop shelf, reports an EPO case study

Four female inventors from a Turkish research lab have finally reached the stage where their product is on sale on the shop shelf. To get to this point, they have had to overcome a series of failures and setbacks. Through it all, their IP has given them the foundation they needed to find a way forward.

The four inventors created a Turkish start-up by bringing in their university as an in-kind shareholder in their spin-out. They gained national recognition as entrepreneurs, walking away from a venture capital deal and eventually learning enough about commercialization to land a deal with a pharma major. On the back of all these experiences, they are now building their own commercial R&D company, Dermis Pharma, while continuing in their posts at the university.