A Medical Device Daily

The Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF; Seattle) reported $300,000 in awards from its inaugural winter commercialization grant competition to support commercial translation of health-related technologies by two Washington state-based research teams.

One team, led by Philip Fleckman of the University of Washington (Seattle), will assess the ability of a novel material to prevent infections associated with catheter use. The second team, headed by Kenneth Schenkman, also of the University of Washington, will conduct a clinical study of a new device for the early detection of shock.

Commercialization grants are designed to facilitate the transition of promising ideas or technologies from Washington's non-profit research sector into marketable products and services that can improve health, foster economic growth, and promote life sciences competitiveness in the state. The grants support proof-of-concept experiments and prototype development activities that are expected to lower the risk of commercialization and help new technologies cross the "valley of death" – that stage of the commercialization pathway where development funding is particularly scarce.

"Applicants submitted a written "pre-proposal," a mini-proposal that was reviewed for commercial potential by a panel of commercialization experts prior to submission of full proposals. From 23 pre-proposals, seven full proposals were received. A panel of national experts convened by the American Association for the Advancement of Science evaluated the scientific and technical merit of the full proposals, while a panel of commercialization experts assessed each proposal's commercial potential and possible health and economic benefits. The Life Sciences Discovery Fund Board of Trustees made the final award selections.

In other grant news, Boston University's Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization (ITEC) reported the creation of the Boston University Clinical Innovation Awards Program (CIAP) supported by a grant from the Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick, New Jersey) Corporate Office of Science and Technology (COSAT). This COSAT funding of $150,000 will provide initial support for researchers involved in identifying and solving unmet clinical challenges by developing innovative new medical technologies.

Enabling critical collaboration between the medical and engineering communities, the grant will support customized teams of students assembled from a variety of disciplines to solve real ongoing healthcare delivery problems identified by clinical practitioners.

ITEC is the entrepreneurship education and research center at Boston University and the Clinical Innovation Awards Program made possible by this grant will offer advanced students from programs across the BU campus a hand-on opportunity to work directly with the clinical community to address the most challenging unmet medical needs. These awards are part of a University-wide initiative to promote cross-campus collaboration, encourage entrepreneurial leadership, and accelerate the commercialization of University research with the potential to improve global patient care.

A formal launch of CIAP will take place on Aug. 25.