Speaker 1  0:00  
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to regional idea hubs for biomedical tech transfer acceleration presented by Otto. My name is Holly Lundgren autumns online professional development manager. And I'll be your staff host for today. All lines have been muted to ensure high quality audio, and today's session is being recorded. I would like to take just a brief moment and thank our 2020 online professional development sponsors. We appreciate the ongoing support. And at this time, I'll introduce our moderator, who will in turn introduce our panelists. I'll turn it over to Ian McClure. Ian is the executive director of the UK office of technology commercialization. Welcome, everyone.

Speaker 2  0:47  
Thanks, Holly. Hey, everybody, Ian mccluer. Here, excited to host this, this panel today and discussion about a pretty exciting program and learn a lot about why NIH NIH EMS created this program. And then what the four hubs northeast, southeast central and west are doing. And we've got representatives from, from all of those hubs that are going to speak to those hubs, the activities and then we'll get into a curated discussion at the end around what these tech transfer hubs can do to fill specific gaps and provide solutions to those gaps as found them in our work. The my co host here today is Liz Knapp, Liz is a with our se hub that we call the accelerator network. And she's a Program Manager for this for this program. And she's with the University of Kentucky. We also have Becky aistrup. Becky is API for the central hub called Sharpe. And she's a managing partner for the entrepreneurial training firm, a consulting firm BBC. Next is Chris Shonda. We're up Chris Shawn is the program officer for this whole program. And he will be talking to us about why the energy MS and NIH have invested heavily into this program. And Chris Shawn, as the program officer will lead us off before we get into the hubs. Next is Heidi Chapman. Heidi is a Pio for the West hub called a synth. And she is a business development specialist for verticity, which is a consulting firm on the West Coast, doing tech transfer consulting. And we have Charles or Charlie urban. Next Charlie is a PI of the Northeast health called driven. He's an associate dean and professor of medicine, Professor of Molecular Molecular Physiology and biophysics excuse me for the College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. And finally, we have Eugene krenzel. Eugene is API for the SE hub called accelerator network. And Eugene is a Chief Scientific Officer for accelerate a healthcare accelerator based in Louisville, Kentucky. So we're gonna get right into it. We've got a lot of things today to Qatar. And to lead us off is Krishna whare, who is going to talk more about the mission and purpose of the program, as laid out for us by NIH and IDMs. Chris, Sean, thank you again.

Unknown Speaker  3:42  
Very good. Okay. Good afternoon. I'll be talking about fostering biomedical biomedical entrepreneurship in IDeA States via regional accelerator hubs are what IDeA States are tied in the title idea stands for institutional development about this is a congressionally mandated program. And a goal of the program is to strengthen research capacity, and enhance geographical distribution of research funding in states that historically have received low level of funding from the National Institutes of Health. There are 23 states and Puerto Rico that are idea eligible.

Unknown Speaker  4:36  
Next I'll start with the mission of National Institutes of Health, which is two parts. The first is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior or living system and the second application of that knowledge to increase health. improve health, mental life and reduce illness and disabilities. So I'll poke into the second part of the discussion today, which is translation of the knowledge from scientific discoveries and advances into commercial products that improve health for patients. I'll just describe briefly NIH efforts in this space. And NIH is a key driver of biomedical innovation, and has strong commitment to facilitate and accelerate the translation of promising federally funded technologies, drugs and devices from the lab to market. These discovery, of course, save lives, and also fuel economic growth and create jobs. NIH has next, NIH has a new office called seed the standard for small business, education and entrepreneurial development. This office leads the efforts to assist innovators, jumpstart discoveries, and use resources effectively to drive the technology development forward. This includes entrepreneurial education to help scientists understand product development, and various activities and programs that are tailored to individual awardees so they can achieve maximum benefit. These NIH efforts are consistent with next

Unknown Speaker  6:48  
consistent with President's management agenda, to increase engagement and engagement with private sector, technology development experts and investors, secondly, build a more entrepreneurial research and development workforce. And thirdly, to support innovative tools and services for technology transfer.

Unknown Speaker  7:18  
One program that NHS supported is phase zero proof of concept centers and centers for accelerated innovations, NCI centers and second, the research, evaluation and commercialization hubs are called as reach reach hubs. The goal of these two centers and hubs is to support innovation and inventions from academics. These phase zero centers and reach hubs were funded to turn discoveries into health products by supporting promising technologies combined with public private partnerships to promote suicide. So societal benefits. Based on the success of reach 1.0, NIH had NIH has funded five new reach or 2.0 hubs in 2019. In addition to reach hubs, and this NCI center, and other programs that NIH and funded is regional technology transfer accelerator hubs for ideas states. And which is a focus of today's webinar. Next is a relatively new program. The goal is to accelerate academic entrepreneurship in the biotech sector with IDeA States. This program is based upon an Analysis Reporting disproportionately fewer SBIR STTR award from IDeA States than in non IDeA States. And also variable tech transfer operation activity across idea state institutions. That as I mentioned earlier, there are 23 states and Puerto Rico that are ideal eligible, and these are color coded on this map, and are grouped in four regions to promote regional sharing resources and foster collaborations. These regions are called Western region Central, northeast and southeast next

Unknown Speaker  9:42  
so as I mentioned, it's an relatively new program new initiative in response to congressional directive, and was founded in September 2018. To support one shared accelerator hub for each idea pro audio region to provide infrastructure and build an entrepreneurial culture at the idea institution. These hubs are to provide training, mentoring and consulting services in various aspects, including entrepreneurship, tech transfer, IP protection, commercialization, training, and other business skill sets that are needed to translate innovation to marketplace. The goal is to build a diverse and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem and community and under resourced states.

Unknown Speaker  10:37  
Next

Unknown Speaker  10:43  
Next.

Unknown Speaker  10:49  
These regional accelerator hubs are implementing the educational program and provide mentoring to create and amplify an ecosystem of resources and best practices to help academics become successful entrepreneurs who can translate their innovative technologies to marketplace. These hubs will also help to nurture and develop current and next generation of biomedical entrepreneurs at the idea institutions.

Unknown Speaker  11:27  
Next to this slide lists four hubs, which are funded nearly a year and half ago in each idea region, at least also the name of the small business concern SBC and major academic partnering institution to create a regional network. And each of the four regions you will be hearing, as Ian mentioned, more from each of these four hubs what what they do, what they have to offer, and how you as an innovator can benefit from them. So I'll stop here, and thank you for your attention.

Unknown Speaker  12:19  
Okay, thanks for Shawn, for you know, starting us off. Let me talk a little bit about accelerator network, which is our South East hub. And it is a very interesting combination of a number of universes. Unfortunately, I cannot control this. I don't see a way to get a holly. Could you? Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, so this is this is our constellation of universities. As Sean mentioned, our primary academic partner is academic lead in this STTR funded by NA JM s effort is University of Kentucky. But we have a consortium a constellation of terrific universities across six states in Puerto Rico, total of 24 of those universities are listed here. And it's a whole spectrum from research one, to regionals to HBCUs to Hispanic serving. It's a great spectrum of universities that are participating in this effort. Next please. A few words about a small business concern that is leading this effort along with our academic partner. It's accelerate health as it's a healthcare focused early stage startup accelerator in Louisville, Kentucky, with primary focus on steel blanks lean startup methodology. We have been founded in 2012 been operated operating since then running bootcamp and intercession programs, and use a large number of mentors and subject matter experts nationwide to help coach our teams. And that's a picture of our small team of management of that program and our coaches. Next, please. So, a little bit of bad division for accelerator network. So we would like to put our efforts in bridging the divide between the wonderful ideas that exist at academic institutions, with researchers and students and the marketplace by leveraging and connecting existing resources and unique expertise that exists across all those participating entities, not only just in universities, but but also their regional ecosystems and their partners. We would like to fill the gaps that we have identified during our visits to all of those 24 universities and their ecosystems, and deliver the additional resources education, the network's can connect all the dots and to foster and sustain a culture of entrepreneurship across this whole six states plus Puerto Rico and territory. So we would like to get all of that connected through an online hub. And that has become a tremendous asset in terms of the approach in the COVID-19 environment. We were building additional pieces of curriculum based on current best practices employed, both by accelerate health and our academic partners. We do train the trainer program, utilizing existing facilities not to reinventing the wheel. And we'd like to sustain the engagement with researchers from those institutions and other embrace participating researchers across our region through valuable programming tools. And I would like to talk a little bit about specific tools that we are employing right now. Next, please. So we did there. In our phase one, we did assessment and identify the gaps. So those three items on the left are the main things that we heard from academic institutions and researchers what is needed to get to move the needle and commercialization and acceleration of moving technologists from academic benches to to the market. One is commercialization training curriculum. Second is overcoming the lack of knowledge how to successfully apply for grants like SBIR STTR. And the third is assisting with bringing the talent to support commercialization of technology within those academic institutions. So we created so far, the following programs and efforts. One, we launched three virtual commercialization programs, one in collaboration with University of Michigan, fast pace, the second one in collaboration with one of our members University of Louisville program called launch it, and also leveraging soil health bootcamp. Second, we created and launched two new commercialization funding programs. One is idea to products we'll talk about this in a second as a proof of concept program, funded through administrative supplement from NIH AMS ads, and also SBIR support program. And we also established access to the talent through our executive roster and subject matter expert networks. Next, please. This is something that we're looking at a snapshot from our slides for I'm sorry, from our website. One is that we created a resource map across all all our states. And people who go to that website can explore that network and find whatever they need, they need co working space, they need accelerators, they need angel groups, Investment Consulting, makerspace, manufacturing facilities, startup programs, wet labs, whatever is needed, it can be found and those resources are continuously added to do that map so the researchers can access that next please. Okay, so the next one is a social wall that was created with real time feedback, I'm sorry, real time feed from directly from participating institutions. And those are automated. So our constellation of universities, whenever they put something on social media, it's automatically added to our our webpage, anything related to their research and entrepreneurship programs. So that information immediately gets promoted through our social media feeds. Next, please. The next one, as I mentioned, executive and roster program. It's a great program originally started by our academic leave University of Kentucky, and now being employed by not only our region but also I believe that some of our sister hubs are employing the same and other regions of the country. And right now we're in the process of removing those regional boundaries between the very two subsets of XR. And we created a way for everybody who wants to participate being on the university side on the researcher and entrepreneur side or on the executive side to register and submit their application to become a part of that network. And you see that some of the numbers, and those numbers are specific to institutions and entrepreneurs and executives that are located in our six states and Puerto Rico. Their total number is significantly larger than that. And there are three categories of executives, we just added a new category for those who are willing to commit up to 51%, or from 51% of their time to serve as pie, if it would be needed for SBIR grant. Next, please. So the next one is subject matter experts. And this is a snapshot of our some of our resources that are available that we built, built some through our original accelerated health networks, and adding to that through their joint effort from all our participating institutions. Each of the institutions are contributing to the larger network. They're contributing, they're experts. And those domain expertise include, you know, being providers, clinicians, insurance companies, regulatory specialist reimbursements, you know, big pharma, SBIR expert, HIPAA expert IP protection, and so on. So on. Next, please. The next one is that the proof of concept program that we have started with this administrative supplement from na GMs, just a

Unknown Speaker  21:54  
couple of months ago, those are the seven winners of the awards that represent almost all of our territories and states at 55. Pre applications, and finalists were invited to submit full proposal Sona were selected for funding. And we have continuous engagement and mentorship for all the awardees and milestone based tranche funding process for continuing that operation that we learned through participation of some of our people and reach 1.0. I was one of their original MPI team members at the University of Louisville, when we were doing reach 1.0 and in mccluer, is a part of their reach 2.0 team of kinetic that is for the state of Kentucky. Next please. The next one is SBIR support program. And we built a SBIR guide that includes both original content, including videos with war stories, short word story of war stories of videos from successful SBIR funded enterpreneurs. And also links to established resources. We run a SBIR corner, it's a monthly column, sharing thoughts and experiences from people having expertise in different sides of SBIR operation. And we just starting a brand new program, we actually finalizing their selection of the candidates today. And we'll start working with them effective later this week. With a one on one assistance to two researchers, founders to receive mentoring and coaching on SBR strategies and alignment. We got a tremendous response from our researchers on next week. Next, please. Yep, and this is pretty much what we have done what we're doing right now, if you're interested to hear more, those are the contacts by mine. And in mccluer. We are part both part of the larger MPI team that consists several other people. Jackie Wilma, I believe she was on the call as well. Listening to this presentation, he or she is the CEO and affects all referrals and also contact PII on this grant. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  24:25  
Alright, thank you, Jean. So hello, everyone. My name is Heidi Chapman. I am with verticity which is the Small Business affiliate of the ASCEND Western hub grant. And I'll tell you a little bit about what we've been doing for the last I guess almost two years now already. So this is just a description of our project team, as Christian mentioned, and the other hubs have alluded to as well. The structure of this grant is a small business. That is the pie on the grant. And then Essent actually has to lead academic institutions that Ada Some in the entrepreneurial development across our hub as well. So I work with artists, which is the Small Business affiliate in our CEO Neil fingers on the grant as well. The University of New Mexico is our main academic co lead with Eric process and Kathy foster have helping out there. And then we also have University of Montana as academic co lead, that's asis University of New Mexico. And in addition to Varanasi and our two primary academic partners, we have additional partner institutions across the western United States. So you can see on the left the represented IDeA States within the Western hub, we have a number of institutions that we work directly with within the Western hub, and then additionally conserve additional universities through some of our widely distributed resources, which I'll try to point out later on. And in addition to our academic partners, which you'll once again, see on the left here, we also have some program partners, as well as idea partners that we work through to distribute our resources, as well as get an idea of the unique needs of the innovators within our western hub. So we're currently collaborating with University of Washington's a newly awarded REACH program, as well as Colorado's our newly awarded REACH program, and also the CCTS in the Mountain West region. And then additionally, working through the idea networks at each of our institutions, then raise the cool breeze. The University of New Mexico has a health science, clinical and translational science center that we work through, and then the mountain was CTR i n. In during our first year of the grant, Ms. Eugene mentioned as well, we really tried to understand the unique needs of our hub. And what we saw is that not surprisingly, there's innovation happening in our hub. But the innovators there just didn't necessarily know how to carry it forward, or the resources weren't there to support them. So we did two rather in depth surveys, the first being our resource mapping survey, where we work directly with the universities themselves, specifically the tech transfer offices to understand what their pain points were. And we identified kind of two groups, one we termed areas of opportunity. And these are areas that the universities were already working on, but needed help with. So one of those was degree focuses and certificates to try to build that entrepreneurial culture at the universities, and engage undergraduates and graduates early on, so that when they become faculty, they already have that entrepreneurial training within them. Another area of opportunity was networking events, and engagement of the ecosystem. And what we found is even though that a lot of our seats are rather isolated, we do have the largest geographic representation of all the hubs spanning all the way from Montana to Hawaii, there was still a strong ecosystem around the universities that could be taken advantage of and engaging the business expertise that was in their own ecosystem, and bringing that expertise into the academic setting. And then what we're all fighting here is a culture change, changing the culture of the institution to support entrepreneurship, and see that as a way to enhance the academic research and experience rather than fighting against him. And then we also identified a few areas of needing improvement that ascend really tried to focus their resources into. So one challenge in our western states, which I'm sure people are seeing across the hub, and across the US in general, is funding at the tech transfer offices as well as people power. So all of our tech transfer offices are doing a lot of work and don't have a lot of funding to back them. So how can ascend help them complete some of these activities, and specifically, how can ascend offer biomedical expertise to support these tech transfer offices, when we only have one or two tech transfer officers at each institution, the chances that they have robust biomedical expertise is going to be fairly low. So one of our goals is to provide that expertise and support them in ways that they may not be able to do otherwise. Offering more conferences and seminar seminar opportunities as well as guest speakers. The best way to disseminate information is hearing from peers, colleagues or someone that they can look up to so offering more of these opportunities, and really engaging the innovators there. And then the overall arching theme of our hub as well as all the hubs is SBIR and STTR training, trying to increase the training as well as the awareness of the SBIR and STTR mechanism and the vibe idea of is opportunity to translate your research as an institution. And in addition to talking to the universities, we also wanted to talk to the innovators and the researchers themselves to understand what they saw as their pain points. So interviewed faculty, postdocs, as well as students at the universities. And one thing that immediately popped out to us is 74% of our responders were dead, they're interested in translating their Reshet research into a commercial product is greater than or equal to eight. This is something that we initially found surprising. But then as we dug more, it made sense, everyone, at least at some level understands that, in order to get their product to a patient that needs to be commercialized, what we need to understand as a hub was how they wanted to do it, and how we could support them. So we'll have a range of researchers that either don't want to be have any part to do with the commercialization process, they want someone to take it over, we'll have people want to create their own startup and take it all the way. And then somewhere in between. So understanding the unique needs of each of those researchers. And just in general, the barriers that they sought to translating their research into a commercial product, lack of access to commercialization resources, lack of knowledge of how to transition from the lab to the market, and a lack of knowledge of the resources that are already available to them, and how to find them. So our overall takeaway here are the researchers are there, they're innovators, they're interested in learning more about entrepreneurship. But they just weren't sure how or where to do it. So that's where we tried to focus our resources. And this all led into what we call the sense solution. So we have a range of resources that are available in trying to catch the innovators and the researchers are in each stage of development. So just to start off, we tried to really focus on the online delivery platform, as Eugene talked about, as well. We're covering a lot of geographic area here. So the best way to hit the most people was to do it virtually. So we have two online platforms, which I'll talk about in the following slides as well. Being both our website as well as a resource database that we collaborated with the Northeast had to build out. So I'll talk about those in a little bit here. And then we tried to focus on some more specific areas as well, that we could help aid the universities and build infrastructure where they didn't already have and one of that was entrepreneurial training, specifically in the biomedical space. So send us hope host a monthly webinar series, we hosted both live and it's also recorded and archived on our website. So I encourage you to check those out. And the first year, we covered just general concepts within commercialization and business development, starting with intellectual property, how to submit a technology disclosure, going all the way through to SBIR STTR funds company formation in fundraising. In addition, we developed an open access curriculum called Bridging the Gap commercialization for biomedical researchers. And this is a fully developed PDF package, which is designed to be handed off to any institution or any program and has all the material needed for both the facilitator as well as the participants to go through a four week course on kind of a just a crash course on biomedical commercialization. So the cover all the way from how to understanding what an entrepreneur is, what your ideas are, and if it's a viable product, going through introduction of SBIR and STTR funds, as well as putting a pitch together, and understanding the process that you go through to get to commercialization. So like I said, this is an open access resource that we've developed through the hub during Coronavirus. We've pivoted this to a virtual platform and have been hosting this online. We have one running right now, actually with our third session today. And if anyone is interested in bringing this into their curriculum or learning more, I encourage you to reach out because we'd love to share it to more to more universities as well.

Unknown Speaker  34:24  
In addition to these General Training and Curriculum enhancements, we also want some more intensive training for those innovators that are ready to take the next step. So one of those offerings is our business advising cohorts. So we just finished up our spring cohort and then we'll be recruiting against for the fall. And this is a one on one time intensive consulting and business advising cohort, where the second team meets with each of the companies and goes through a five week cohort focused on their specific pain points and how to take the next step with their company. So we were able to support five instances in our last cohort, which included paying for their registration and helping them through the bio partnering system that happened in June. And this is a very successful cohort, we're excited to get another recruitment for the fall as well. And this served as a opportunity for these innovators at institutions that previously didn't have access to experts and mentors to also get paired with a mentor. During week two, we found a external mentor to pair them with to get advising and mentor and pass the cohort to continue it on. In addition to the mentoring offered through the business advising cohort, we're building a virtual mentor network. So this is a curated network, currently managed by ascend. So we have mentors across the western United States, and are always looking for more mentors, which I'll discuss a little bit later on. And what we aim to do here is identify mentors that have expertise in the various stages of development that our innovators can go to for advising. And then our final final offering is technology development. So we see this is just a general mission of helping researchers with the hub understand when they have a technology, and what to do with it. So we always have rolling opportunity for innovators within the Western hub, to submit their technologies to a center receive a due diligence sheet back and a Technology Review. And then in addition, we have specific resources that provide training as well as funding to accelerate that technology development. One being our NIH SBIR and STTR cohort, which is starting the end of this June. This is an intensive cohort that goes all the way from registering your company getting all your registrations for submitting your SBIR and STTR. Grant, writing it getting professional review, including micro grants for hiring consultants, and all the way to the submission process, we'll watch them submit their applications and make sure that they truly go in on that September deadline. And then, in addition, thanks to the generous supplement that the NIH awarded us, we were able to offer innovation awards throughout our hub. So we offered a foreign amount of $50,000, to innovators, looking to complete gap studies to enable them to either start a company or file SBIR grant, as well as five micro grants in the amount of $10,000, to companies that have recently formed and need just a little bit help to take the next step. So through all these resources, we feel like we've really been able to help a lot of innovators. So far, we're always looking for more innovators to touch. On the right are just some numbers that we've done so far with the resources that we've offered. So the resource database currently has over 250, open access partners and resources that our innovators can access of. We've trained more than 400 aspiring entrepreneur entrepreneurs through either our courses or our webinars. And the innovators that we've engaged with have received more than 13 point 3 million in grant funding through either SBIR STTR grants are government, government contracts and grants and businesses who have gone through our business advising cohort and so far received $60,000 Follow up investment capital. So this is our ASCEND homepage, I encourage everyone to take a look at it. We have our resources listed out there, as well as a upcoming news and events. And on this website is where you'll find our archived webinars. So feel free, please feel free to go on. Take a look at the webinars we've posted so far, as well as the ones that are coming up in the future. This is a searchable resource database that I mentioned earlier, I won't go into too much depth because Charlie Ervin will actually go in a little bit more depth later on in his discussion as well. As I mentioned, we collaborated with the driven hub on this to create a curated database of biomedical entrepreneurial resources that are available across not just our health, but the entirety of the United States. And this is a list of the webinars that we've hosted so far. So you'll see we started with intellectual property in September, and we've covered inventions, innovations, startups, beginnings as well as the Lean Startup model, SBIR and STTR. How to pitch accelerators and incubators that are available through the Western United States, how to create an entrepreneurial culture and specific issues that our faculty are facing at our universities, and then this webinar for June Then you'll see is focused on biomedical entrepreneurship skills, and how to incorporate this into undergraduate and graduate curriculum. And then finally, I'll end with our call for mentors. Like I mentioned, we are curating a mentor network as all the hubs are in, we're always looking for more opportunities to connect with potential mentors. So we're looking for mentors, who are currently in industry, or were in industry and have expertise in those areas. We're also looking for academic mentors. So an academic who has successfully commercialize their research, rather, whether they did it themselves, or they collaborated with someone else to do that and are willing to provide their expertise back to expect inspiring and budding entrepreneurs. All mentors are going to be screened by the advisory committee at ascend, we always reach out to the mentors to confirm their interests engage, their their time commitment, and then we will match innovators with the mentors and control that interaction.

Unknown Speaker  41:13  
Driven I mean, as you've heard this as a these HUD programs are collaborations between folks in the private sector and academics at various institutions within the region. In the Northeast, the principles are cell, Dara, medical and sim backs, which is a cell Dara develops drugs and therapies for market add, sim Beck's is a company that works with entrepreneurs to develop medical devices. Both of them are located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and they're actually in the same building and have worked with each other for a considerable period of time. Sim Beck's is actually coming off NIH grant that has been developing entrepreneurial training and cohort training for a number of years. These are the institutions in the Northeast that are partnering for the driven program. And I'm going to show you a map here in a second. See if that's going to work. Nope. Could you advance the slide for me? Some reason I don't have control that the main mission of driven is quality, quality adjusted lives. Our group is very focused on having moved the needle and actually developing products that are going to change patients lives. Our goals are to increase the quality of medical startups in the northeast, decrease the time to market as we all know that faster we can get to market the better, and then increase the probability of success of our budding entrepreneurs and our partner institutions. Next slide, please. This is the map to remind you a little bit of the geography. The states that are involved are Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, Maine does not have a medical school, for instance. And so our connections, their main medical, the mount desert island, biological labs, Rhode Island, it's Brown University and the University of Rhode Island, University of Delaware, University of Vermont, and I'm the Ph. D. Academic pi in the partnership. And then in New Hampshire, we have cell Daris and Becks, you University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth. Here now you'll notice that we're located right around a hotbed of bio entrepreneurship. And that's the Boston region that we take, as you'll see, full advantage of that. Next slide, please are our next terminal Advisory Committee for driven is built off of the idea of a pitch panel. Similar to the one we use at University of Vermont, which is based on Stanford Spark, we call it spark VT. These are the members of the EAC. And some of these, I suspect everybody in the audience has recognizes. And we have venture capitalists, we have patent attorneys, and this is a tough crew are people who are pitching to get the funds that I'll explain in a minute, have to do it in front of real experts. We've also been developing in collaboration with the tufts center for development of therapeutics. Next slide please. This is the basic design of the program. We have the driven partnership program, we have the usual resources, customer and mentoring. So sessions gap analysis, funding for key enabling activities. And then eventually we get our groups or our different study groups to the point where they're ready to pitch to the panel. We have the virtual websites and services attended to there, many of them the same offerings that you've already heard of curated webinars. They're and they're available to everybody you can sign on. And if you don't find something you're interested in one of our other hubs, you can certainly search ours and see, and they're really content that's pitch to, to appeal to the folks in a university, faculty, undergraduate students and such like. And then, of course, we're always on the lookout for opportunities. As Heidi's already pointed out, we actively collaborate with the Western hub on many of our initiatives. Next slide, please. In the end of the day, and since I'm an academic, I can speak to this with a fair bit of authority, nothing like a carrot to attract our clinic, our clinical colleagues, as well as our academic additions. We're always on the lookout for additional dollars to fund our research. We have two funding programs, one is called and of course, this is a play on words off the driven name as the accelerator fund. This is a larger grant. This is this is a grant where the individuals have to pitch to our panel. And the major thing we're looking for is a product or business that is going to really move the needle in terms of qualities. I think a newly added aspect is the ignition fund. And this is a smaller amount of money much easier to get a hold of it's again, as Heidi was pointing out in their program is to identify somebody that needs just a little bit more before they're to the point of a pitch or writing an SBIR grant. On a biannual basis, our hubs select three teams, and to partner with for intensive one on one, development and mentoring. This is a three month period we do a gap analysis action plan, utilizing all the driven resources and some of the I trap which I'll talk about in a second, they then present to the driven EAC. And then if they they do a good job, then they are invited to get as an applicant to the accelerator fund. Okay, a little different kind of approach to the problem. Next slide, please. These are an example of it's always best to talk about the stories. These are examples of three different companies that pitch to our last EAC meeting this last January. The first company is in New Hampshire. It's a company that grows out of Dartmouth called clearways. They've developed a small device that you put on your chest and it measures lung sounds. This one this company pivoted quickly to COVID is if you're following that at all, you know that coughing and difficulty breathing is a typical pattern seen in a patient who's infected. And so they're in the process of applying for COVID related funds. At the other end is Novo Biosciences. They come from Desert isle. Biological labs, if anybody knows that group that's actually looking at marine biology. And they developed something that they saw in the lab from one of the sea creatures that is basically a stem cell type of thing that repairs heart hearts extrav in the second is looking at a platform technology to deliver using extracellular vesicles. Their target is muscular dystrophy. This is an interesting company because they also participated in our eye trip program. Their first pass they did not do well. So they went we put them through the summer boot camp. And they came back in sterling fashion and did a really terrific job. So I think one of the things that we know about entrepreneurship is resilience, and these guys certainly demonstrated that next. This is I trap, which is a partnering program that I'm the PI for. It's an iPad grant from NIH GMs. It has five elements to it. travel awards means sending students mostly to SBIR meetings webinars. But our crown jewel of the program is a summer course that runs about two weeks here in Vermont. There there, we have faculty, postdocs, but mostly us graduate students. They work in teams. And their final is to pitch in front of an entrepreneur. This last pitch session, we did it in front of John aid, really, who some of you may recognize this the principle of bio bio Boston Scientific. Next slide, please. And then, as Heidi alluded to, we have both websites for both programs. And we're developing a platform to connect people largely focused, in our case, on finding internships for students, because as we know, many of our grad students are not going to go in academics, they're going to go into the private space. So this is a good entree into that sphere. Next, and I think we'll hand it off to the central hub.

Unknown Speaker  51:11  
Becky, out there.

Speaker 2  51:22  
Thank you, we can't hear you, I think you're muted. actually doesn't look like you're muted, but we still can't hear you.

Unknown Speaker  51:33  
Sorry, I had myself muted. There are people always wish they could do that. And I did it to myself. But anyway, thanks again, to everybody for sticking with us on this. We missed the fact that we couldn't be with you at the National Conference. I'm going to take a little bit different approach here and talk about some of the gaps that we identified and some of our overall approaches and I want to give acknowledgement also to my co Principal Investigator Doug Wright at the University of Kansas, who's our STTR collaborator on the project. I'm the managing partner of BBC entrepreneurial training and consulting. We've been in business since 1990, working with entrepreneurs, focusing on non dilutive funding and entrepreneurial development. And our other institutional partners include Nebraska, University of North Dakota, University of Oklahoma and University of South Dakota, through the inbreeding that works with for those of you not familiar with Ambree, it's the program of NIH that stands for IDEA network of biomedical research excellence, and the other universities within our states who have Embree programs, we are reaching into them as well through those Embrey programs and involving their campuses as well. So we started the same as everybody else, the first year going out there trying to figure out what the issues were and what were the real gaps. So, you know, when we decided not to just preach the idea of going out and doing customer discovery, we went out to the market and did that. So we talked to to academia, we talked to staff, we talked to entrepreneurs, we talked to people in the ecosystem within our five state region. And basically the the number of things arose, but these were the ones that that really stood out as the most critical elements. First of all, is that within our region, and it's interesting that I think all of our regions are different from each other, I think you've been able to see that just from what you've seen, presented by Charlie and Heidi and everybody about their region. But few programs exist in our region at all to get to Driver Assist any entrepreneurial activity at universities, but also within the economic development ecosystem within the states. There just wasn't anything there to help these people. We also learned that there were very, very low SBIR STTR funding rates, if you aggregate all five of our states since 2017, there have only been 36 Total NIH SBIR STTR awards, and that includes phase one and phase two, both. So we were getting a few more phase ones, but very few of them are translating into phase two. And then finally, although we had a lot of people interested in entrepreneurship, we really didn't find that there was management talent, particularly in life sciences, and the same thing held true in terms of of investment. So we set our overall goal to increase the commercialization of the NIH funded research within our region by forming startup companies, working with the technology transfer offices, when they're available at the organizations that we collaborate with, and offering entrepreneurial education and a big focus of what we've done is using the SBIR and STTR programs to provide that early stage non diluted funding. And by doing that, we've to establish that to spur that on, we've set up a number of training and consulting programs to increase the number of awards in the central region. And we've even learned that a lot of people weren't even aware that SBIR STTR existed and that their universities weren't clear on how to collaborate and work with companies who might want to to work with them. So we found this also an education sort of a train the trainer, if you will bring in the tech transfer offices and to really understand the program as well. So we established our program to address the companies wherever they were coming from. And in many cases, they weren't companies, we found that a lot of these are very early stage, they're academics, who have a great idea, they really want to benefit mankind with their technology. But they really hadn't even gotten to the point yet of forming a company or seriously considering that. So we have to reach back further than then typically you think of when you talk about entrepreneurship to where some of them didn't even have companies yet. So we set up again, a virtual classroom, and a number of the trainings that we did were alive before Coronavirus, but we were already setting them up to go virtual because we have very rural states where it's hard to be able to reach everyone across the state, they can't necessarily come in every Tuesday night for three weeks or six weeks for training or come to one central site. So we were concurrently developing the virtual classroom which turned out to be a good thing. And within that we've developed essentially what we're calling startup School, which is also called eight steps to commercialization of research technology. And that was developed in conjunction with with Michigan Fast Forward program that was mentioned earlier. We BBC is based in Michigan, so we have a close collaboration with the University of Michigan and work with them and the University of Kansas. To develop that, that program, then we also have a huge array of SBIR STTR. Programming. We provide proposal and and business mentoring. We've already mentored 30 companies since this started with 14 SBIR proposals submitted. And you have to understand that within some of our states like North Dakota, there have been zero NIH SBIR awards. So just to have this awareness of having people submit is some good strong progress. And then to reach back and help those people that we found in our region, were really the early stage people that we needed to pull into the pipeline. To get this program successfully launched, we developed what we call the mentoring assessment and planning program that includes intense one on one mentoring for commercialization as well. So we go from the virtual classroom, we have the early stage funding assistance. And then we have the MAP program that's available for them with tools and guides supported by online videos as well as one on one assistance. And we're able then to take a an entrepreneur who may yet just be at that exploratory stage, help them determine that there is a customer drive and demand for their products, which they also appreciate helps inform the writing of their research strategy when they're writing SBIR and STTR is as well. And then we've learned that these entrepreneurs really get a lot out of of working with one another and hearing each other's experiences. A lot of the early stage academic entrepreneurs are sometimes a little bit I don't want to say afraid, but leery about taking that first leap. And it's really helpful to be able to connect them with their peers who have successfully done this and talk about what their experiences. And then we brought other regional resources into those programs as well. So again, some of the resources cut across the whole region, but many of them are just state oriented. So we also do programming within each institution and state and bring in for example, their economic development or their bio organizations. They're that the Midwest Venture Capital Association, for example, has come in to speak. So we brought bring in these resources that they can actually interact, rub elbows and talk to these people, as well as developing information resources in the form of a extensive website with resource materials connected and other links through a program called source link that we contracted with the University of Missouri at Kansas City was the original developer of that that particular technology. But it allows the entrepreneurs to go in and identify resources that are available to them across the five state region, depending on what the specific need is that they have. And the advantage is that the back end of this also allows us it serves as a as a contract, a contract management program. So we can also plan all of our programs and collect metrics from the same system. And that's been a real benefit for us. That here's the Resource Navigator that I was just alluding to, the intent is that this connect the community so that that all the the ecosystem can work together to benefit these budding entrepreneurs. It helps them identify any kind of entrepreneurial resources, including things like specific kinds of laboratory resources that they might need to accomplish their research projects or, or intellectual property assistance and that type of thing. So it also enables us because again, everything is connected within this system to measure the impact as we go along. So that we can be sure that we're actually meeting the needs.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:20  
So we have been hoping to get many more people involved in the sharp hub and are beginning to reach out. And that includes all the university partners that I mentioned, we would love to talk to any of you who whether you're in our region or outside of it to learn more about what you're doing. To foster this. We have a cadre of mentors that do work one on one with our companies as well. We bring them through a assessment process when they first start and do initial interviewing with any entrepreneur, entrepreneur or want to be academic who is interested in developing this way. And then from there, we assign them to the appropriate resources based on where they are in the process. And that might include those mentors. We also connect them with venture capital and angel investment groups that are in their location, as well as damage with talent. Although I have to say that's still one of the biggest challenges that we have is identifying management talent that really wants to step in. So we are engaging with the entrepreneurs and residents and equivalent programs at the universities to help foster that as well. So with that, I'd love to hear what everybody else has to say any questions that may come up, and here's my contact information, I'd be happy to talk to anybody about the programs that we're doing as well. So thanks.

Speaker 2  1:03:02  
Thanks, Becky, and thanks all the panelists. I'm going to take us through now, we have all been cannibalized much of our open discussion time. But that's okay, we've got 15 minutes left. My co host, Liz and I are going to take you through some very, very quick slides. And then I want to get us into one question for the panel to discuss, which is something that has come up through all of the presentations here. And and that is really around talent management, access to talent, mentorship networks, subject matter experts, that was a running theme, I think through all the all the hub presentations, something that everyone is working on. And is important, I think to what everyone is doing. So here's a couple of stats really quickly. Liz Knapp and I took a look just through some autumn data, simple autumn data, and we filtered out IDeA States first non IDeA States. And what we found, frankly, from the autumn data was pretty was was not non obvious. So it was obvious stuff, right, which is basically, on average ideas, state institutions produce less newly filed patent applications, less foreign applications, less provisional filings and less issue. But the takeaway here is that the ratio between all those are fairly much the same, right? We're looking at about, you know, a third of provisionals being converted, and then issued patents are about the same ratio between ideal states and non ideal states. So we're looking at what is fairly not not obvious, which is resources. But what does that mean for a lot of people, people love to talk about flyover regions and Institutional Development Award states having less access to capital. But what's important is that we can't forget that when you have a patent when a startup has a patent, they are 4,000% more likely to raise private capital that's from a study performed by some MIT faculty. And so if we're filing less patents, we are also less likely to raise capital that's again, not not obvious. Here's some interesting stuff. When we get into the startup statistics, yes, IDeA States on average, on average per day, by the way, these are for reporting institutions to autumn. So that's not all ideas, data institutions, but those that do report to autumn. We have, of course, less startups on average. Interestingly, though, we have a higher percentage of our startups that rely on SBIR STTR funding? Well, as you might imagine, if you have less access to private capital, you go after the SBIR STTR funding, which is why you've probably heard that Becky and the central hub and driven and all of our hubs accelerator network, ASCEND are all focusing on SBIR STTR STTR for our innovators. And of course, here's my here's my my main conclusion, which is the most not non obvious conclusion, which is yes, the ones that do perform well, from a metric standpoint, then again, those reporting to autumn are those that have the highest research expenditures, so you have more resources, you do more. But when I think Liz is about to tell us is something more important, because when what we what we knew we needed to find out all of the regions is that when we had to perform an assessment, what else is out there that we can what what other gaps are out there other than just lack of lack of money, right? Or lack of things, what else is happening that we can take advantage of, or create advantages for to help provide some solutions. So with that, Liz, a couple of slides for you to get into sort of the non obvious stuff that we might have found. Thanks,

Unknown Speaker  1:06:35  
again, just to summarize, these are the gaps, barriers and blockers that the SE identified. But really, they are reflected that I heard and all the other presentations. So there's a lot of commonality here. So once again, we need more entrepreneurial education and training resources, mentors, and subject matter experts, more collaboration across the region in terms of both expertise and individuals as well as resources. And then the pipeline of discoveries. This is really a subset of number one, basically just making sure people understand the IP process, and that they have an appropriate release time from research, ownership issues around entrepreneurship, access to capital, like Ian mentioned, Angel and venture capital, and then promotion and tenure policy issues. And this is a really hot topic right now. I don't think we're going to have time to get into it. But But that's an important issue, a way to reward the commercialization efforts. So that it's, it's reflected in the promotion and tenure policies, and then technology transfer gaps. So those are the barriers. And there's just one other slide if you want to advance in. So what are the solutions, and I really think this is reflected well in these presentations, rich development of commercialization curriculum, communities of mentors, and subject matter experts, collaboration, which we've seen between the folks here on these awards, sharing IP best practices, just a couple of things on number four, in addition to the resources that are being built by the hubs, there's also autumn, which is an excellent resource, if federal laboratory Consortium, and then there the IOP world, Intellectual Property Organization, SBIR STTR, grant writing programs, sharing best practices, the tenure policies that I mentioned, in seventh is kind of a subset of number two, so executive and fundraising, mentorship, and then lastly, technology transfer, and legal support for hubs. So just real quickly, and this may inform our discussion of the 24 hubs in the southeast network. 12 of them do not have their own tech transfer offices. So there's some innovative ways to provide those services of those 12. Eight are receiving services from other organizations, whether it's a research trust, or a state university support a nonprofit that provides those services. So with that, we can we can dive into the discussion.

Speaker 2  1:09:00  
Yeah. Good. Thanks, Liz. All right. So Topic number one that came up again in the in the presentations was about talent management, access to talent. And we saw solutions being created around mentor networks and subject matter expert communities. I think all of us all four hubs are doing something like that. And I think all of us could have come to the conclusion that perhaps that is our biggest gap is matching our technologies which are not lacking right fintastic technologies in these regions and in these hubs, but matching them with the talents to take it to the next levels is tough coaching, mentorship, etc. Eugene, I'm gonna pick on you first, tell me a little bit about how important this is, especially for these regions these Institute's to develop an award states for our regions, how important is it and and maybe in this COVID environment, let's speak to what this is doing to either create advantages for or mentor networks, network development? Or do you think it's creating disadvantages?

Unknown Speaker  1:10:04  
No, I think I think that, you know, creating those, you know, those networks is incredibly, incredibly important for institutions, the access to that type of expertise is limited in, in the locations, it's limited. Within smaller institutions, it's limited even at, you know, with just institutions that are Singapore larger than others, including, you know, like Sofia, Val and UK, and, you know, some others that we don't have, I think that access to those networks are absolutely critical, both for short term interaction and the long term, you know, from anything from a 20 minute call to subject matter expert as a part of customer discovery, access to the right person at either regulatory organization or reimbursement, hospital system, how, you know, personal decisions are made. And all of all of those things are particularly valuable and important for health care to people who would be engaged at a larger level through XLR or through other platforms to be continuously involved with, with a small, small business that is starting up serve as pie on SBIR awards, or serve as, you know, part time or full time CFO, or CEO.

Speaker 2  1:11:37  
So, Heidi, you also mentioned you're developing a network like this, how are you guys? What's unique about your network? Are there anything, whether it's geographical or, or maybe it's the way that your matching folks are creating visibility, anything unique about your network?

Unknown Speaker  1:11:53  
Yeah, so what we're really trying to tackle with our network is a semi curated matching system, and trying to identify the best type of mentor for our innovators. And I think one thing that really drives this is that our geographic distribution leads to very different types of innovators, which I know we've all talked about, you know, how we have these great technologies, we have great innovators. But what I've come to really appreciate is that there's different mindsets within innovators, there's there's different drives, there's different ways to communicate. And that's been our greatest challenge with our mentor network. And we found that it really matters who you connect with not just the expertise that they have in the way that they can communicate. And one thing that we found is that our innovators really appreciate mentors that understand the unique challenges of remote areas and remote states. So trying to curate a mentor network that's very different than what we typically think about has been our greatest challenge.

Speaker 2  1:12:58  
Yeah, agree. Becky, or Charlie, anything you want to add to data on what you guys are doing that your networks wise?

Unknown Speaker  1:13:07  
Well, I'll just mention that one of the the mentoring pieces that have been really valuable for us is the peer mentoring. Because I think for these people to see others who came from the same roots or background that they have, be successful is really critical and key. And those narratives, those stories about how they got there, I think make a real big difference. So yes, you know, there are certainly IP and regulatory experts that we could connect people with. But I think what's having the most impact? Is that peer mentoring as well. Yep. Yep.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:41  
Yeah, I would add, I would echo what Becky just said, we see this in our summer boot camp course, of the group's work in teams, and it's just amazing to watch them grow during the short period of time that they're here. We have speakers that come in three or four of them during that period that they can interact with and ask questions. And it even in that, but, and people like it, because it's short, and it's intense. But I also agree with what Heidi says it's it's finding the right camp, you know, the personal chemistry between the entrepreneur and whoever's helping them, whether it's regulatory, or, you know, working on an SBIR grant or whatever, it's, and that's, that's, it's like matchmaking, and there's a lot to it. Yep.

Speaker 2  1:14:35  
So I want to I know we're at time and I'm going to take us into one more discussion point until Holly screams at me and makes us stop. Let me let me do it this way. So if for anyone who might be watching this, or will watch the recording of this, and let's say they are an investor from the coast or they are someone who is interested in the technology hotbeds that are developing in our regions and wanting to To see them and access them and see and touch and feel them and get to know them. What are you doing as a hub to make sure that, that your hub is creating that, that greater access. And I think we're all doing stuff I know that are sort of internally focused client focus, we're working with our innovators, we're doing education, we're making sure we're, we're, we're harvesting these things further. But I think another part of our mission from an agent GMS is to make sure that there's greater visibility and access partnering, so to speak. So Eugene, let me start with you. And talk through as if you were talking to someone who might be interested in what's going on in the southeast idea region. Tell them how to connect and what the exhibitor network is doing to to create that accessibility. Yep,

Unknown Speaker  1:15:45  
you know, this is, this is a great point. And we were looking for partnerships in various areas, from investment to advisors to different philanthropic organizations that want to support their local entrepreneurial ecosystems, your economic development organizations, there are multiple ways to connect with us, our website is accelerator network.com, our emails were on, on that slide of the slide, a slide deck. And most importantly, there are multiple ways to get in touch with us, either through small business through us recorded calls, or through your institution, your academic, you know, group that you have in your own, you know, region, or you have to work your work with. Even if you are outside of our region, we would love to partner with you, we would love to get some targeted specific programs, we're working on something for a subset of our institutions that are HBCUs to create a special program that would support them in particular, if you're interested in that, or in our Hispanic serving institutions. Any any partnerships is are welcome. And we would love to hear from you.

Speaker 2  1:17:09  
Great, and I can speak to that. And all six, for example, all six of the technologies that were funded through the ITP program are certainly worthy of a look for anyone interested in really cool stuff. biomedical innovation going on in the SE. It's

Unknown Speaker  1:17:25  
actually 777. Even

Unknown Speaker  1:17:27  
more even better. Alright, Heidi, what do you got?

Unknown Speaker  1:17:32  
Yeah, thank you. This is a great question. And similarly, the the company is going through our cohort, our companies are specifically looking to develop their skills to pitch to investors, we're always looking at new ways to engage investors in ours expand our reach there, I'll say the most robust way to get access to our innovators. And what they're doing is our external advisory committee, we're always open to new members there. And those are our committee members that sit on the pitches and give feedback throughout the process. Additionally, starting with our fall cohort, we're looking to do a live stream of the pitches and inviting investors to sit in regardless of whether or not they're part of our external advisory committee. So the best way to stay up to date with that is if you go to our website, you can register for our quarterly newsletter, which will keep you up to date with all of our upcoming events.

Speaker 2  1:18:22  
Awesome. Thanks, Heidi. All right, Becky.

Unknown Speaker  1:18:28  
Oh, for two years, we've run a program called the Midwest drug development conference in Lincoln, Nebraska. And that the catchphrase for this program is flyover this. So we brought together innovations that are should be interesting to venture capital and other kinds of investors and institutional investors. And we set up an environment specifically for them to pitch in that particular environment. And I think that's really important, because I know I think the most discouraging statement I ever heard is I was presenting at an NIH conference with a VC backer, and she was talking about all the programs and all the things they were doing. And I said, Okay, what advice do you give people that are in these ideas, states that are in the Midwest that are in the flyover zone, you know what she said, move. That was one of the more discouraging things I ever heard. So we have to overcome that culture as well by giving people an opportunity to see what's going on in our particular region.

Speaker 2  1:19:36  
I'm gonna I'm gonna blow your horn a minute here. That conference, that Midwest drug development conference, that's been I think, the University of Nebraska. Right. CO leading that we've our offices in the last two years University of Kentucky and it is fantastic, and I think we're excited for the one coming up this fall. So anyone that wants COVID And All right, Charlie.

Unknown Speaker  1:20:03  
Well, aside from the obvious, which is to get on our website, I would actually for those that want that white glove treatment, I would call Julie Coleman at sell Dara or Tina Thornton, in my office for a trip and just talk to him on the phone. You know, tell him what your story is. And both of those folks will sit down and figure out how to connect you to whatever it is you're looking for.

Speaker 2  1:20:32  
Great. Thanks, Charlie. All right, I want to thank all the panelists, I want to thank autumn, for giving us this platform to talk about this great program or to thank NIH and NIH CMS for creating this program. And I know we're all looking for really big things coming out of it over the next year and a half or so that we continue to to grow these programs and make impact in our regions. So thank you all, I think all of our attendees here for joining us, especially for these last six or seven minutes here that I took from it. Thanks, everyone.

Unknown Speaker  1:21:05  
Thanks, Holly. Thanks, Ian.

Speaker 1  1:21:07  
Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Thank you all for your time. Thank you for attending. Those of you that did attend I hope you found it informational. We will have a recording available within just a couple of days. Access to that recording is included in your registration. Also, please remember to complete the evaluation that'll pop up when we close out today. That will conclude our program for today. Have a great afternoon, everyone.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai