Originally Published MX May/June 2004
BUSINESS NEWS
University of Pittsburgh Strengthens Industry Ties |
| Green |
Medical device companies looking to license new technologies being developed in the Pittsburgh region may have an easier time thanks to a newly formed enterprise development office. In late March, the University of Pittsburgh announced that it has created an organization to promote and manage entrepreneurial and business development opportunities that result from research in its six health sciences schools.
The move is expected to help the region's continued efforts to expand its advanced manufacturing, information technology, and life sciences industries. In a statement, University of Pittsburgh chancellor Mark Nordenberg said the initiative would have a substantial effect on the region's economy. "We are convinced that, over time, developments such as these will have great value as life sciences business generators," he said.
The Office of Enterprise Development will serve as the interface between the university's academic center and the medical technology industry, says Carolyn E. Green, who will lead the new office. Medical device advancement will make up a significant percentage of the office's activities, she adds.
Green is the former director of the Limbach Entrepreneurial Center (LEC) at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Existing LEC operations will become an operating unit within the new office.
The goal of the enterprise office is to "expand faculty-centered commercialization activities now available through LEC and combine them with an industry-focused business- development initiative," says Green. One of those activities is a commercialization facilitation group that uses a three-step, milestones-driven model that LEC has developed to "take the most nascent idea generated in academia—be it a device or other technology—and help it through the necessary development phases to fundamentally reduce the risk and increase the value of that opportunity from a commercial perspective," she says. The three-step model includes a viability assessment, incubation, and opportunity summary stage.
Staff at the enterprise office will focus on growing technologies as well as building relationships with industry. "There are people whose specific role is to work from the 'inside out,' which is examining the school's intellectual property and helping to map the three-step model to mature the opportunity," Green says. "At the same time, we have a separate activity that we call 'outside in,' which is to build relationships with industry partners so that we can more readily license technologies to them."
Green says the latter activity, first initiated last summer, has been well received by industry. "Executives are enthusiastic about having a single point of contact that can help them navigate the bureaucracy of dealing with the university, which has thousands of faculty members," she says. "We serve as intermediaries because we speak the language that each party wants to hear and we translate very well."
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