The University of Michigan's Innovation Partnership is off to a fast start, raising $2 million of its $10 million goal and investing $680,000 into four promising projects.
Those four projects include developing novel inhibitors of metastasis ($250,000), Heat shock Protein 70 as a target for neurodegenerative disease ($100,000), development of protein kinase inhibitors for the treatment of metabolic diseases ($150,000) and small compound inhibitors of streptokinase expression as a therapeutic approach to Group A strep infections ($180,000).
The university announced the partnership last year as a way of breathing life into promising healthcare research at U-M's Life Sciences Institute. Many of these discoveries never make it out of the ivory tower due to the lack of seed funding at the onset before commercialization.
That's called the Valley of Death by researchers and venture capitalists. Often there isn’t enough venture capital or angel investors to go around for all of the discoveries made by U-M's top-shelf researchers. The partnership hopes to bridge this valley with precious start-up funds.
"The goal os this project is to see if we can get them one step closer to the marketplace," says Liz Barry, managing director of the U-M's Life Sciences Institute.
The partnership is funded with philanthropic sources. It also pairs up researchers with mentors and advisors to help them bring their discoveries to commercialization and help create more jobs locally. The idea is to not only provide bridge funding but also bridge advice from business savy entrepreneurs and experts.
"Our institute is all about collaboration," Barry says. "We're trying to bring business advice and business mentors to researchers so there is more collaboration."
Source: Liz Barry, managing director of the University of Michigan's Life Sciences Institute
Writer: Jon Zemke
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