Arizona State University’s Office of Research and Economic Affairs recently sponsored the second in its series of CEO forums, which provide industry and nonprofit leaders with the latest updates on the rapid pace of ASU research and entrepreneurial initiatives.
The forum showcased ASU’s burgeoning bioscience portfolio. According to the U.S. Biotechnology Industry Organization, biosciences were a $360 billion industry in 2008[1]. Under the leadership of ASU President Michael Crow, ASU has coalesced the university’s intellectual horsepower to take advantage of this opportunity to spur economic development and create jobs while serving the higher aim of improving human health.
In the past five years, ASU has made great strides in carving its own bioscience niche, building on areas where ASU has distinct capabilities. These new arenas focus on fusing the biological sciences with engineering and computing capabilities that, together, can be powerful tools in detecting, preventing and treating human illness and injury.
A trio of ASU professors, Sayfe Kiaei, Roy Curtiss and William Ditto were among the presenters at this latest CEO forum. Each lead a large, multidisciplinary team of researchers in promising avenues of research, including advances in wireless communication technologies, new vaccines, and intelligent prosthetic systems for neurological and orthopedic rehabilitation.
Ditto, interim director of the Ira A. Fulton’s School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering and a recent recruit to ASU, was attracted by the university’s lean and facile entrepreneurial environment that is unburdened by traditional academic silos.
“Arizona is an amazingly fertile ground to get research from the bench to society,” said Ditto. Ditto has assembled his own start-up venture at a breakneck pace. Since Thanksgiving, he has taken his pioneering neural rehabilitation research projects, raised 1.5 million in seed funding, facilitated intellectual property agreements, and identified research space for his start-up venture, which is being performed in collaboration with Dr. David Adelson, a neurosurgeon who directs the Children’s Neuroscience Institute at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.
“I’m here because we can do it in a way that other universities can’t,” said Ditto. “Our job is to take wild, crazy chances, because if we can hit the jackpot on translating innovative research, we are going to change society and bring tremendous value to your company.”
Also on the agenda was Alan Nelson, executive director of the Biodesign Institute. Nelson echoed Ditto’s sentiments as he outlined plans for more rapidly translating the most promising Biodesign discoveries.In just its first five years, the Biodesign Institute has become a $70 million a year enterprise that has attracted more than $300 million in external funding since inception. Biodesign has also dramatically increased ASU's innovation pipeline, disclosing 279 inventions generating 178 provisional patents and 57 patent filings. To date, 18 patents have been issued.
Now, Dr. Nelson wants to turbocharge the ASU entrepreneurial environment through an innovative program called the Biodesign Impact Accelerator. Drawing upon his 30 years of experience as a university scientist and entrepreneur, Nelson provided an update on the implementation of his vision to transform the traditional model of university technology spinouts.“Entrepreneurs talk of the ‘valley of death,’ which is the capital investment gap between taking an innovative idea from the laboratory to the marketplace. It is when most start-ups wither on the vine,” said Nelson. “The unique, forward-thinking model of the Biodesign Impact Accelerator, which we believe is unique to U.S. university technology transfer, will bridge that ‘valley of death’ to more rapidly translate university research to benefit the public good and U.S. innovation.”
Key features of the Impact Accelerator include: new technology licensing mechanisms; start-up friendly intellectual property licensing templates managed through partner Arizona Technology Enterprises; innovative agreements for cash distributions upon a liquidity event; and an advisory board for technology assessment and market valuation of start-ups entering the accelerator. “We are in the midst of selecting the most promising technologies and setting up the incubator space at Biodesign and SkySong for the new companies,” said Nelson. Selecting space at both venues provides the start-up efforts with the key ingredients of bioscience success: access to state-of-the-art ASU research space and entrepreneurial acumen.
The Biodesign Institute is the largest bioscience facility in the state, while Skysong has become a global hub of innovation and venture creation, assisting entrepreneurs and innovators with local, national and global market expansions. Key partnerships have been established with more than 20 global startups and mid-sized companies from Mexico, Canada, China, Ireland, Germany, India, Japan, Turkey, Singapore and the U.K.
“This is all about risk-reduction and high-valuation, and in 3-5 years, having a major societal impact,” said Nelson. “The stars are lining up for us. It’s now all up to us to succeed. The barriers are gone.”
Future CEO forums will feature ASU innovations underway in engineering, flexible display and solar technology, renewable energy and aerospace.
To learn more, contact Dawn Kallestad, Director of Corporate Relations, Research and Economic Affairs at Dawn.Kallestad@asu.edu.
[1] Based on an April 2008 market capitalization of publicly traded companies
