It started as a simple invitation for BioEnterprise entrepreneur-in-residence Jon Snyder to sit in on a meeting reviewing promising new biomed technologies originating from Case Western Reserve University research.
The meeting’s host was the Coulter-Case Translational Research Partnership, which unites CWRU’s biomedical engineering department and its medical school to shepherd such technologies from lab to marketplace.
At the 2008 meeting, Snyder heard about intriguing new research into neurostimulation for treatment of chronic pain. It was so interesting that Snyder left BioEnterprise to launch Neuros Medical, a company on its way to taking the technology to market within the next three years.
“Since Neuros Medical’s inception, there have been these ties you can trace back that might not have happened without the [Coulter-Case partnership],” says Joseph Jankow-ski, a Neuros board member and CWRU associate vice president.
The relationship has pulled the technology out of the lab so its viability can be tested in patient care, helped Neuros with matters of intellectual property and patent application, and provided initial funding to get the concept on its feet. Follow-on investment now totals more than $4 million.
“The [technologies] that die on the vine are because of the lack of that first entrepreneur [to bring research to market],” says Jankowski. “Coulter helps polish the opportunities to the point where entrepreneurs are willing to take a chance on the technology.”
Neuros is one of five local companies to have benefited from the program, created — along with nine other universities nationwide — with funding from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. The hope is that it will bridge the chasm between biomedical engineers and physicians into which promising technologies often fall.
“Initially when we would go to [medical school] faculty, they would say, ‘This is something I’m interested in. Can you make it for me?’ ” says Jeffrey Duerk, chairman of Case’s department of biomedical engineering. “We had to [create] a real partnership between the two scientists.”
In this new collaborative environment, physicians and biomedical engineers work side-by-side, as they did in Neuros’ case, to determine market viability of new technologies, determine further research needs and clear regulatory hurdles.
Coulter-Case has invested $3.8 million in this effort since its inception five years ago. It has received 215 proposals, 60 projects have been accepted, and five are headed to market, according to project director Collin Drummond.
“We’re like a little venture capital group doing a real analysis,” Duerk says. “We ask, ‘If we offered $20,000, what’s the one experiment you would do?’ That points toward the go or no-go decision.”
For those that have received a thumbs up thus far, Coulter-Case has secured 16 full or provisional patents and helped them earn $26 million in follow-on investment. As a result, products get to market more quickly and with less upfront dollars.
“In the past, it’s about $2.5 million in research to yield one commercial disclosure. … We’re averaging $250,000,” Drummond says. “We’ve had as short as six months to a year for commercial interest, versus many, many years.”
Duerk likens the path of a new technology from bench-to-bedside — a layman’s way of describing translational research — to taking ideas down the Euclid Corridor.
“On one end is the ignition point of ideas coming from campus, and on the other end is the Medical Mart,” Duerk says. “Can [Coulter-Case] help spur the health corridor and have an impact on the Medical Mart? Absolutely. I would be disappointed if that didn’t happen.”
Finalists
Lorain County Community College, Lorain County Board of Commissioners and Lorain County Chamber of Commerce
Project: Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise
Startups call IT the “valley of death” — that perilous gap an entrepreneur must bridge between exhausting personal resources and securing venture capital. But the early-stage period that startups dread is a sweet spot for the Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise.
GLIDE was founded 10 years ago by the Lorain County Community College Foundation, Lorain County Chamber of Commerce and county commissioners to provide incubation to early-stage entrepreneurs.
In 2007, GLIDE launched the Innovation Fund to help such startups bridge that funding gap, and in 2011, the organization’s model got approval from the White House, which created the Innovation Fund America based on GLIDE’s model.
Since its inception, the Innovation Fund has awarded $4.3 million to 60 startups, which have attracted $41 million in follow-on investments and created 100 new jobs. In one decade, GLIDE has advised more than 1,700 entrepreneurs and incubated 65 companies, including Thermedx, Nautica Windpower and MedCity News. The program has contributed to creating or retaining more than 600 new jobs with a total payroll topping $35 million.
The Business of Good
Project: Ashtabula’s Bridge Street Revitalization
The Business OF GOOD was originally formed as a charitable foundation to help nonprofits that serve the poor build capacity and incorporate best practices into their work.
But founder and Ashtabula native Tim McCarthy uncovered a need just as compelling right in his backyard — the struggling Bridge Street historical area near Ashtabula Harbor.
What was once a bustling shopping district had become littered with vacant properties, so McCarthy launched an effort to revitalize the area. He connected budding entrepreneurs with small grants — provided by Cleveland’s WECO Fund — to get them off the ground then provided business coaching and ongoing mentorship.
Since the program began in 2009, investment of $188,000 in the Bridge Street district has created or retained nine small businesses, 35 jobs and more than $500,000 in payroll. Bridge Street’s success stories include Sandpiper Gallery, Briquettes Smokehouse, and Harbor Perk Coffeehouse and Roasting Co.
McCarthy now enlists the companies who have benefited from the project to serve as mentors themselves to Ashtabula’s newest entrepreneurs. He’s also taking his mission on the road, hoping to begin applying the successful formula he created on Bridge Street to resuscitate other flagging neighborhoods in Northeast Ohio this year.