Contents
Critical Resources
The Business End of Translational Research
R&D Meets MBA
Facilitating research is just one side of the equation. Investigators whose work leads to promising techniques or devices face the daunting task of production and marketing. At the University of Washington, the Department of Bioengineering had funding from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation to promote translational research and was seeking individuals with MBAs to assist with product commercialization. The ITHS created the needed link with the university's School of Business. Piggybacking onto the existing fellowship program of the School of Business' Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the ITHS-Coulter Fellowship supports summer internships for second-year MBA students to work with scientists in moving their discoveries toward the marketplace.
This collaboration of people and funding across disciplines has already produced tangible results. At the University of Washington's DNA Sequencing and Gene Analysis Center, Center Director and Associate Dean Rodney Ho worked with John Hoekman, a doctoral student in pharmaceutics, to develop a novel pressurized olfactory drug delivery device that enables drug administration via the nose directly to the brain. The approach speeds up the drug delivery process while at the same time bypassing the potential for toxic systemic reactions that can be caused when high concentrations of drugs are delivered orally or intravenously.
With an ITHS-Coulter Fellowship, the scientists teamed up with MBA students Michael Hite and Peter Olagunju to conduct market analysis and develop a business plan. The effort earned the team $50,000 from the University of Washington TechTransfer's Technology Gap Innovation Fund and won the $25,000 grand prize in the university's annual business plan competition. The team licensed the technology from the university and spun off a company, Impel NeuroPharma, to further develop the product.
On the basis of the early success of the fellowship program, Kim Folger Bruce, director of research partnerships at the ITHS, anticipated increased investment and participation. "It seems like a natural fit, but someone has to establish the relationships," Bruce said. "The need is there, and there are many MBA students interested in medical applications. So, once you have those relationships, then it's just matchmaking."
During the past four years, ITHS Director Disis has put in place changes intended to make the CRC function in similar fashion to a commercial clinical trial research unit. She sought business expertise to determine appropriate fees for the center to charge researchers, and turned to the School of Business. The school identified an MBA student to take on the task as an intern. The intern is conducting interviews and gathering information from investigators, commercial research units and other sources to create a business plan to ensure the financial success of the center.
