Speaker 1  0:00  
All right. Good afternoon and welcome to today's webinar using America seed funding to expand the university innovation ecosystem presented by Autumn. My name is Samantha steagle. autumns 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. If you have a question for the panelists, we encourage you to use the q&a feature rather than the chat feature. If you have a technical question or comment, please feel free to use the chat. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank autumns 2021. Online Professional Development sponsor, we appreciate your ongoing support. I now have the pleasure of introducing you to today's distinguished speakers. Dr. Jennifer, she's she is Chief Scientist for the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs, building partnerships and coordinating policy across the 11 participating federal agencies. She served as the Assistant Director for entrepreneurship at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she led national efforts to improve the transfer of federally funded technologies from lab to market, advance federal agency coordination on r&d, infrastructure, and champion open innovation through prizes and citizen science. Previously, she managed the small business program for the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and served as program director at the National Cancer Institute SBIR Development Center. She was involved in product and customer development at syapse, precision medicine focus startup and mobile games startups and vs interactive. Jennifer studied Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT and earned her PhD in Neurosciences at Stanford University. A theme city as the Academic Innovation lead at the NIH Small Business Education and entrepreneurial development office, known as the seed office Aseem oversees and coordinates programs at NIH to foster Academic Innovation and early stage product development including the coordination of NIH is a proof of concept network that spans more than 100 universities and research institutes across 34 states and Puerto Rico. Prior to seed a scene was a program director at the National Cancer Institute's SBIR Development Center, where he started supported startups developing anti cancer technologies. He also initiated and led several NCI SBIR programs including investor initiatives, mentoring programs and translational workshops, a theme came to the NIH as a presidential management fellow and completed multiple rotations across the NIH and a rotation at the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. He received his PhD in Biological Biomedical Sciences with a secondary concentration on science, technology and society from Harvard University. Please join me in welcoming Jennifer inseam. And Jennifer will get us started today.

Speaker 2  3:01  
Hi, thank you so much. I'm really excited about this opportunity to share more about how America seed funding can be used to expand the university innovation ecosystem. No, live up. Right. So for those of you who would be probably most of the members of autumn in the tech transfer space, I think we have a pretty common big challenge ahead of us that we have in common, and it's how do we make sure that research and development gets translated from that fundamental discovery stage into real world impact? And who should be doing this? What we're looking here in the at this chart is a comparison of who does research and development at various stages compared to who funds it? And so you'll see right with US taxpayer dollars from the federal government going to support basic research, universities and colleges are doing most of that research. But then, in the purple, you'll see that that transition to business doing a lot of both the funding and performance for the later stages. So how can we hook up the two and one of those ways is through the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Program. SBIR and STTR we like to refer to as American seed funds, just to get us all acquainted with the basic SBIR is about 3.2% of the extramural research budget for agencies that have a budget greater than $100 million per year. So that ends up being about $3.53 billion are each year going to small businesses doing r&d. And the Small Business Technology Transfer Program, which is similar to SBIR, but has a core difference in that it requires the small business to partner with a nonprofit research institution like a university has point four or 5% of the extramural research budget for agencies that have over a billion dollars of r&d per year. And so in total, this is over $4 billion non diluted funding going to help startups and small businesses, and that's it's actually now over 7000 award. So why are we doing this? Right, what is what is the SBIR and STTR programs? How do they help startups and small businesses, really, we're funding them to transform that high risk, high impact research into technologies and products and services, that will actually make an impact and solve the problems that we're trying to solve through these different federal funding agency missions. Another core aspect is really making sure that there's participation and innovation and entrepreneurship from all Americans, regardless of gender, race, geography. And so we want to make sure that we're tapping into the ingenuity across all of America. Now, you might wonder, I just talked about this as a percentage of r&d funding from federal science funding agencies. So what does the US Small Business Administration actually have to do with r&d? Our office within the SBA? You know, we do not have r&d funding. So we SBA does not actually fund any of the small businesses through the SBIR and STTR program, the role that our office, the Office of Innovation and Technology within SBA plays, is really more oversight and coordination with the federal agencies that do fund the SBIR and STTR program. But really, we think about it as really empowering the agencies to achieve their missions through small businesses. One of the key things that we do there is by building the broader innovation ecosystem, so ecosystem builders like yourselves at universities, tech transfer offices, also state economic development group, we think about that technology based economic development and how you as a core anchor institution within your broader community can help advance small businesses and and the technologies. So we do a lot to collaborate across the federal government, around SBIR and STTR in the broader innovation ecosystem, to get us all grounded on, again, some of the core core similarities across the SBIR and STTR programs, because there is quite a bit of variability in the specific ways that funding gets distributed. But at its core, these portions of Extramural r&d funding that are reserved for small businesses are distributed through tranche funds in phase one, and phase two. And so you know, that early proof of concept stage up to $250,000 can then translate into a phase two, that's up to 1.7 million. That's the, you know, core SBIR STTR dollars that are is reserved, but there's, you know, a broader range of phases that we think about too. Sometimes we talk about phase three, which is the getting that product to commercialization, and it can be federal funds, or it might be when it's moving on to commercialization. We also think a lot about how do we get more people into that phase one stage. I will say, you know, these are federal r&d grants or contracts. We can talk a little bit more about the specifics there. But some of the core features that people care about in terms of tapping into American seed funds, those startups, this small businesses, it's non diluted, we do not, as the federal government take equity from those companies. So this is just funding to get that technology de risk. Because their federal grants and contracts they do fall under the Bible rules. And so that means awardees retain ownership and title of the intellectual property. But in addition, there are special SBIR STTR non disclosure rules on the federal government known as data rights and data rights protection. So for 20 years, the government cannot disclose any of the data that is marked within that SBIR or STTR project, which means trade secret is also a pretty viable intellectual property protection pathway. And then I did mention these direct follow on phase three or four So the way we typically talk about this is right, the federal government is one of the biggest customers in the world. And so by competing through the phase one or phase two stages of SBIR or STTR, that enables that small business to be able to access the federal government as a customer through sole source direct awards, or buying the technology or further developing the technology that was created in the SBIR and STTR awards. Now, you know, which agencies actually fund both SBIR and the STTR programs, these are big five. So if you know about, you know, the general scale of r&d funding. Because SBIR and STTR are a portion of the extramural r&d budget. It's the agencies you might expect, Department of Defense is the biggest. We've got the Department of Health and Human Services, and NIH is the primary funder through HHS, though CDC, FDA, and ACL, the Administration for Community Living are also part of the Department of Health and Human Services programs. That Department of Energy, NASA, not NSF. And so the big science funding agencies you might expect, there are agencies, another six agencies that fund CIR only, they're not large enough to fund both STTR and SBIR. So USDA, the Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, DHS. Now we do kind of talk about them in department level, but Department of Commerce has both NIST and NOAA. And so they have their own program, and then Department of Transportation. And to give you a sense of sort of how that breaks down across the the budget. DOD and HHS certainly are fund the majority of the award. And you can also see, I talked a little bit about the that each agency funds through their own funding mechanisms that they usually use. And so Department of Defense funds through contracts, while HHS does both grants and contracts, but it's for the large majority or through the grants. Do we NSF, USDA are also all granting agencies.

Speaker 2  12:30  
Another distinction that we we tend to talk about, and it does somewhat fall along the grants versus contracts line. But there are a few few, you know, specific groups that are a little bit different. But in general, you can think about it when we were talking about phase three, and the government as a customer, there are certain agencies where that's what they have in mind to begin with. And that tends to be the contracting agencies. So Department of Defense, NASA, they tend to think about when they're doing their SBIR awards, they want to transition that they want to become a customer ultimately, and purchase the technologies that they're spring, in early phase one and phase two. With HHS, and I've seen we'll talk a lot more about this. But doe, NSF, they had USDA, for example, they all think about it more in a granting way where they are stimulating companies to achieve things that are within the mission of their agencies, but they do not necessarily expect to buy back, whatever it is they are initially stimulating. So they're not really that and customer. And happy to talk more about any of that if you have questions. Since this is a university audience, I wanted to read something because many people you know, obviously with STTR, the Small Business Technology Transfer Programs, that requires the small business to partner with a nonprofit research institution. And so you know that with STTR, that's, that involves universities, but something I wanted to flag is that universities are also frequently partners or beneficiaries in the SBIR Program, which is much larger budgetary which WISe program and has more agencies and engaged. So nearly 50% of SBIR projects across agencies actually have the university involvement. And it's actually much larger for some of the agencies that are granting agencies like NIH or NSF, where universities can be engaged in a number of different ways. So some are through sub awards. Some might be through licensing the technology. Others might be engaged and hiring, or consulting with faculty members. postdoc students. And so there are a number of different ways that a university can be involved in both the SBIR and STTR program. There was a national academies assessment back in 2016, that looked at how many different research institutions have been engaged in the companies that they surveyed, which wasn't even the entire universe. But it was over 350 different research institutions. And so there's quite a wide variety involved in the SBIR and STTR program. So I mentioned that one of the core roles of SBA is to facilitate and support building connect an inclusive innovation ecosystem. And we do that through a number of local partners. Hopefully, you know, some of them or maybe you are some of them. And you can find those through sbir.gov local assistance. But these are partners that we hope will help provide strength around a lot of different aspects involved in starting a company in the r&d space. We think about a lot of the kind of strengthening that that overall pipeline. And so some agencies have very specific programs to help applicants submit their applications and navigate through the bureaucracy that is the federal and government funding process. So the goal of most of these applicant assistance programs is really to encourage more and help more underrepresented small businesses, such as those that are owned by women, or socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, or from underrepresented geographic regions. And so I did want to highlight that Department of Energy times their applicant assistance program with the release of their solicitation. And so there's a program is now open because they're fy 22. Phase one release, one topics have just been announced, I think yesterday. And I h also has an applicant Assistance Program. And so those are timed to provide enough time to help the applicant prepare for his or the next funding cycle. Another way that you may also be engaged and involved in helping strengthen that SBIR STTR pipeline of companies is through the ICORE National Innovation Network. And so there are university partners all across the country that engage in iCore and entrepreneurial training that is involved. So some of them feed into SBIR. So like the National Science Foundation, which is sort of the core canonical original program, USDA also had funded some university based pre company teams to do iCore and enter the pipeline of SBIR. And then a few agencies specifically actually still support Ichor in trying to do the customer discovery phase for their SBIR phase one awardees. And I know NIH and NASA are among those also wanted to highlight a new NSF partnership with the National gem Consortium for diverse academic researchers, kind of a pre iCore program. And it's the inclusion and Innovation Initiative. So as people who are affiliated with universities, you of course, are also thinking not just necessarily about the technologies that are being developed, but about the people. And so that there are a number of talent development opportunities that may be of interest, maybe some of your university spinouts are SBIR awardees. And there are opportunities at NIH, the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, all have supplementary programs to allow for training opportunities with SBIR awardees. So almost kind of like a an r&d startup apprenticeship and paid so. So the goal there is also to enhance and strengthen the pipeline we have coming in and expose students to experiences doing research within a company setting. I think we'll probably cover a couple of the other specific NIH focus grants and opportunities for engaging early stage early career scientists as well. And then I wanted to note that we if any of you are from minority serving institution, like historically back black college or university, we have a strategic alliance with msrtc the embedded acronym of MSI stem Research and Development Consortium, which is focused on really we want to make sure that these networks are connected. And we want to engage emphasize in working with the SBIR funding agencies and enhancing that inclusive innovation ecosystem. Our offices core programs for ecosystem builders are the Federal and State Technology Partnership Program or fast. And this focuses on actual grant funding to provide assistance to small businesses that are going to be applying to SBIR. And so a number of these resources from our past awardees, if you go to this website, you'll find the past awardees and see who they are. And their universities are actually frequently recipients of these and they cover the entire state. And so just to kind of identify some of the benefits that have been seen from this type of engagement, there have been primarily a number of outreach events that reach 1000s, or 10s of 1000s of individuals across a particular state through different training sessions, helping support directly writing phase one or phase two proposals. And this investment, which was $3 million, in total funding for one fiscal year, led to $111 million of SBIR award dollars that were received by small businesses. And the majority of that was to first time awardees. There's a two, it's two times the success rate for all applicants. But it's even better for the first time applicants. And it appears that with this fact awards, there is a higher percentage of the underserved populations than the current population that are being supported through these programs, which is was our goal. We also just had close our most recent growth accelerator fund competition. So this is a prize competition of about $50,000 That really helps specific programs that are going to help innovators and entrepreneurs. So the XPrize competition has operated since 2014, and has supported a number of programs all across the nation. This most recent competition included the SBIR catalyst, which was really focused on collaborative partnerships, and improving connections.

Speaker 2  22:31  
I want to invite all of you to come and join the SBIR support organization monthly calls. So even if you don't end up joining the call live each month, we really have a great group of people, over 650 Different organizations across the country. So we like to showcase best practices, we provide updates from agencies. And so again, even if you can't attend monthly in the live sessions, we actually still send out notes and the recording and the slides. And so we encourage you to sign up. There are also a lot of really valuable resources across the sbir.gov. website, and including a number of very specific tutorials. So I just want to end with no, really we're working on American Seed Fund because we want to see the products and companies that are going to make an impact. We want to see that r&d turn into things that people are going to be using and make a meaningful impact on their lives. I think that's probably something that you care about too. And other reasons why you might want to work with America seed funds, right? You can create that impact from your institutions research. These are opportunities for your students, your community, building up that innovation ecosystem, and partnerships with small businesses. Some of those successful companies do give back and so you can create that virtuous cycle of engagement with your alumni, your startup spin out. And then one last plug for next week. We have our 2021 National SBIR week, some of you may be familiar with our past road tours where we actually had buses of program managers driving around the country to meet one on one. This year. We're doing it virtually. So we're really want you to come Connect. There are one on one meetings available with those program managers. And then we're also having a special partnership with the Minority Business Development Agency on Wednesday with the MBDA envision tour. So I look forward to hearing your questions and having some good discussion. Please do stay in touch sign up for our listserv. You'll stay up to date So now I'm excited to be handing off to my colleague who can tell you much more exciting information about the NIH. So backing off to you. Thank you.

Speaker 3  25:13  
Thank you, Jennifer, for that overview of Small Business Administration, it's great to always like, you know, you think that you know, a lot and then like you hear your colleagues talk, and then you learn new things. So thank you for that. So let me share my screen here.

Speaker 3  25:36  
See what we are seeing here.

Unknown Speaker  25:41  
That looks great.

Unknown Speaker  25:44  
Do you see my full screen? Yes,

Unknown Speaker  25:46  
we can see the slides. Perfect.

Speaker 3  25:48  
Okay. So now I'm going to be talking a little more in depth about National Institutes of Health. And you probably all know what NIH does. It's by far the largest research funding agency in biomedical research, like around the world. And so I'll focus on how an AI supports biomedical product development through funding and support. I'm the academic innovation lead within the Small Business Education and entrepreneurial development office within NIH. And so I'll tell you a little more about our office what we do, but also as a whole, like, how can I support spy medical product development. As I mentioned, you know, you all know, the mission of NIH is to support the, to understand the basic knowledge on how different things about living systems and understand disease and health, and eventually to turn those discoveries into health. So with that, missin and as Gibbs Out Run $40 billion each year as grants and other mechanisms to universities to perform this basic research, to seek and you know, discover understanding of human human systems and understand like, how did Jesus come and how we can solve those problems. And so, by far the most of the innovation in biomedical field do come from universities and the research that resources at universities like yours are performing. But as I mentioned, our mission is not just to understand the basic sort of understanding of the knowledge and understanding how basic research and you know how the system work, but eventually to turn this discovery into health. So we are really interested in, you know, taking these discoveries from these academics and turning it into healthcare products, drugs, devices, diagnostics, and digital health tools with the aim of solving these healthcare problems and helping patients. And so with that goal, as I mentioned, like, you know, we have a really robust infrastructure to support basic research, what is really lacking, and what was really lacking is all these other support that you really need beyond this funding to take these ideas and then turn it into healthcare products. So that's why a little over about two years ago, our US office was started within the NIH Office of Director with that intent and goal to support biomedical product development to take these basic research ideas and knowledge that are discovered and, you know, through an AI support at different universities and turn that into product. So what our office does is we provide that coordinating role and support role for all of these 27 different institutes and centers across the NIH. So we coordinate the small business program, SBIR STTR. at NIH, we also manage and coordinate and as proof of concept network, and we provide a lot of other education and resources program, beyond this funding to help these innovators take their idea and build it into a product to help patients and to bring products to the to the patients. And so I'll talk about all these different aspects of what we do and in how NIH is supporting biomedical entrepreneurship and biomedical product development. So I'll start with the proof of concept network. And the goal of this particular network and program stems from the fact that a lot of innovation do happen at these academic institutions. But what these academics often lack is the the sort of the support that you need beyond that money to take your idea and build it into a product and bring it to market. So it's not just about getting money. It's about understanding what is needed to take this idea and eventually bring it as healthcare solutions to the market. So So, what we did, starting in 2015, and I will talk about the different hubs and centers that we have created in the next slide. But so I wanted to go over the core components and how these different hubs and centers work. So what we did was we created a number of these hubs and centers around the country where an AI supports the creation of these hubs and centers, mostly in partnership, either with small business or in partnership with academic institutions like yours. And so each of these hubs and centers, they provide education and training and entrepreneurship training to innovators in the ecosystem. So anyone is able to access all of the training and educational material and understand what you need to really take your idea and then eventually build it into a biomedical product to help patients they also receive expert feedback is they have some idea and they want to figure out, Okay, is there a product here? Is there a drug or device that I can develop based on the Discovery, I just mean, they will receive feedback from both the experts at NIH, other federal partners, but also from the local ecosystem, from industry from private sector partners in their university network. And then a number of these innovators can also receive this feasibility of proof of concept funding, small amount of money, anywhere from 100 to $200,000, with the idea to do those really critical feasibility studies to demonstrate the that the idea and the concept that they have is feasible and unlikely, and, and so we give them money through the Hubsan centers, is innovators that also get project management support. And the reason for that is one of the reasons, a lot of these academic innovations really fail in making that next step, or moving to that product step is because they still have the academic research mindset where it's not really milestone based. And so what does project management support providers is, you know, it's milestone based. So you know, it's, it's really talking to the innovators on a regular basis and working with them. And seeing if they're meeting the milestone, they get the next set of funding. So keeping them on track and providing all of these resources around, including all the feedback, all the expertise and education and training to take that technology forward. So as I said, the first of these centers was created in 2013. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute creators created three centers. And you can see the color coding here. The, the, the sort of, I think the blue ones are the three NCAA I have so be big in Boston area, the Cleveland Clinic area has gone and then all of the California Medical School System created a network. So it covers 20 universities and research institutions with focus on Heart, Lung and Blood indications. There in 2015, we created a trans and eyes program that covers all of the disease areas across the NIH with the creation of three rich hubs. One is one in New York, Long Island bio hub, one in Minnesota and one in Kentucky. And then in 2019, six additional are five additional hubs were created one in Washington, Colorado, one in the Midwest region, another one in Kentucky, and one in New Jersey. And in 2018, Math Minister of General Medical Sciences, worked with for small businesses. So they provide a word to small businesses to create educational tools and training materials and products with the intent of really fostering in entrepreneurship within the IDI state. So these are states that don't receive as much support or funding from NIH, there are 23 different institutes across the country. And so they created, they funded for small businesses to work in these four regions, and create these educational tools and materials to really help innovators in that ecosystem to develop products. And, you know, with the tools that that were built there. So with all of these three programs now, it covers more than 100 universities in 34 states and Puerto Rico. And so what this network provides is some funding to do feasibility studies. But beyond that education and training and really changing that mindset within the academic culture to start thinking about product development and taking their ideas and building into a product to eventually help patients.

Speaker 3  34:42  
So since the inception of the program in 2013, with the reach and NCI programs, we've been tracking those programs and seeing with each of the projects, so we track them from the point where the innovators come into the hubs and centers and say, hey, I'm interested in applying for funds to do some of the feasibility studies, but also if even if they just get education and training. So, so far 370 funded projects have been funded this is as of last week. And this is from 839 applicants since more than 3000. innovators have received entrepreneurial training and education. Based on the fun thing for those 370 projects, 98 startups were created. And then there were 16 licenses and 13 apps into license. So even if they didn't create startups, a number of those projects led to some either a big pharma or med tech company or our biotech company, licensing technology, how to take the technology of product, the product forward, these 98 startups put in 127, SBIR STTR application and 38 of them received the award. And really impressive numbers in terms of from those 370 projects. And this is ongoing, a number of those projects are have completed, a number of them are still ongoing. And as I said this, the first of those projects started in around 2013 2014. So it's been, you know, seven years or so. And so from those projects, with $52 million in NIH funding, they have gone on to raise $1.7 billion, including 1.5 billion from non federal source of follow on funding. So either, you know, as as venture investment or investment from other private sector capital, or, you know, going public. And so, it's really exciting to see the sort of, you know, us providing that small amount of funding and other wraparound support, that really early stage can really help take these ideas forward and move it into the, into the base. And so we are also tracking the sort of the impact of race and impact on a number of the projects that we have funded have now gone into clinical trial, a number of them have been commercialized a number of them have received FDA approval, as well. So it's really exciting to see that the approach is working of really providing a small capital at that really early stage to demonstrate feasibility, but then providing all the other support that you need to really take an idea and make it into product and also changing the mindset and the the sort of the entrepreneurial mindset in these universities and with those innovators. So I won't go into much detail with this. Jennifer covered in detail about the experience shooter program and the different phases. Just wanted to quickly mention at NIH, we have waiver to sort of go over above that cap. So there is a cap for phase one and phase two. But you know, since the biomedical r&d work tends to be much more expensive with, you know, requirement for us regulatory approvals, we have waiver cap to go over the amount. So for phase one, you know, any company can apply for $256,000, and phase two $1.7 million, but the companies have, depending on different institutes and centers ability to ask for more. And so different Institute's have different web caps, but the small businesses can ask for more money. We also have a number of other sort of programs, you know, that Jennifer mentioned, commercialization readiness pilot is a program where the idea is to provide funding to do some of these non r&d kind of activities, all of these activities that you need to commercialize the technology. So you can receive funding for that with the intent of really helping companies get to that final stage. We also have funding to diversify the works of workforce, that gentleman one thing I wanted to, and we hear a lot about, okay, you know, how do innovators really increase their likelihood of succeeding with getting experience to get rewards and in general, like, you know, getting any sort of support to do biomedical product development, one of the most critical things to do is to talk to a program officer before you apply. A lot of innovators make the mistake of thinking that the program officers or people at NIH are not accessible, I don't want to go to them and think, you know, have them thing that I'm not ready or like, you know, to impact me negatively. That's not the case. We are very open to talking to you. So we really encourage everyone to talk to us and reach out to us before you apply so we can give you feedback on you know, what the application should look like, and how can you make a strong application so you can get the list of program managers on our website. There is also a tool called NIH report, research portfolio like reporting tools with that tool, it's really helpful for you to go and navigate where you can find abstract and install detail for any every single project that Anna has has funded so you can go and take a look at what other kinds of SBIR STTR analysis funding in your space See. So an innovator who is thinking about applying can look and see what other types of work analysis funding but also can understand what else is being done so they can differentiate themselves from others. We also have on our website a number of other resources like sample applications and, and you know, what a typical application should look like and other important resources to help with application preparation. So I encourage everyone who is interested to go and take a look there. We have been really wanting to soak is the success of the this SBIR STTR program. And in general of the, you know, any other program that we have funded with the, the America Seed Fund, especially our program, including with the United proof of concept network, so on our website, we have success stories from we are almost there with all of the states, we're still missing few steps, but and it's a work in progress, but you can go and see what kind of work and is funded and the success that have come out of these programs, both in terms of the public health impact and what these companies have gone on to do to help patients and to save lives. So I mentioned funding. So you know, there is definitely an NIH is by far a funding agency. But we also understand that it's not just money that will help take an idea and take it bring it to the market and to help us and so we have a number of other resources and education and training and other kinds of resources that we provide said environments and the and I sort of laid it out here from, you know, the resources that academics can access and before SPST to application kind of resources that you have, you know, access to the Phase One experience to get to phase two STTR. gentleman mentioned the applicant Assistance Program. You know, anyone who has not received an SBIR STTR award in the past can apply for that program to get support to apply for that first time with real emphasis on helping women and, and innovators from underrepresented groups, but also disadvantaged groups. We have the accurate and eyes program that is available to Phase One awardees. We also have concept to clinic, our C three AI program. This is which is focused a little more on medical devices. And we have two versions of the program one that is available to academics, anyone who has received and is funding from the institute's that participate and also SBIR focused CTA program for phase one and phase two awardees as well. What we also provide, from our offices, innovators, support consultations, and I'll talk about the kind of expertise we have in our team and how NIS funded innovators can receive support from experts who have gone on and like and done these things like you know, entrepreneurs and residents who have started companies of their own or have worked in pharma and medtech, intellectual property experts railroad expert, so there is an opportunity for innovators to get consultations and advice from these people. We also, you know, understand that the the money that we give with both the proof of concept network and their strategy, their program is not going to be enough to take you all the way to the commercial version of the product. And so at some point, you have to go and work with private sector. And so we have a number of programs to help with this, you know, generating interest from the private sector and partnering and investment support. So I'll talk about that briefly as well. One thing I wanted to quickly highlight is the National Institutes of Aging has a number of funding opportunities focused around entrepreneurship, development, arts already program research and entrepreneurial development immersion program. Therefore different funding opportunities with the goal here is and you know, a number of them are focused on academics, students, postdocs, faculty, who are interested in developing that entrepreneurship training. So there is opportunity to get funding to sort of immerse yourself in the entrepreneurial development. And then there are funding opportunities focused on SBIR STTR as well, where any innovator academic innovator who is starting a company can apply to sort of take the technology that they have developed and get funding to sort of take to the next step with with the SBIR STTR awards. So I would encourage you to go to that website listed here. And check it out. It's out on the street right now. And it's active for the next couple of months.

Speaker 3  44:40  
So I mentioned the innovative support. So, you know, this is a handful of folks that are part of our office who provide that real critical expertise, and they can provide that advice to you to the innovators. And this is available to the innovators who are part of the proof of concept network and the Innovate others who have received experience GDR award. And what they can get is advice from people who have done it in the past, right. So the entrepreneurs and residents, they either started companies of their own and have successfully navigated the whole startup landscape, or they had worked in private sector, in industry, in pharma in med tech and are in financial, venture capital firm and other investor firms. And they can really talk to the innovators and provide them guidance on say, for example, the innovators are planning on pitching to investors so they can get feedback on their pitch deck and the delivery. If they're, you know, talking to some investors about a deal. And they want someone to take a look at the terms and give feedback. And our our entrepreneurs and residents and investors and residents are able to do that. If an innovator has questions about intellectual property, we have experts who can provide guidance there. And we also have experts with regulatory and reimbursement background. So either they have worked with FDA in the past, and now they can provide that expertise on Okay, and how should you be thinking about your regulatory plan? Your approach, does it make sense or not, when you're planning or preparing to go to FTA, our experts can help you with that as well. So the goal with the program is to as I said, you know, to make sure that the money we're giving you is being spent appropriately, and so that it will take you to them, and help you do those next critical set of experiments and think about the business side of things and think about, like what you need to do to prepare yourself when you go to fda, or when you have the technology out and you need to be paid either with reimbursement from CMS or from private insurers. You know, how do you prepare yourself so our innovator support team can provide expertise and help there. And in the private sector transition, so at the end of the day, our goal is to take the technologies and the product projects we have funded and bring it all the way to the market and to help us and so we have a partnership with a number of these investors, circuses and events where we solicit applications from within our portfolio companies, they get support, we help you get ready for the pitch. So we provide pitch coaching, we help you cover the registration cost. And we'll send you to a number of these events. So that you can meet with investors, you can meet with partners and build those partnerships and raise follow on funding to take you to the next step. So we have a number of successes that have come out of that approach. One of the company received investment from Golden seed and one with an NGO capital associates. And another company that went we sent to the bio International Convention is closing on a 30 million venture capital round. So these are just few examples. And so we are trying to make sure that the the companies and the innovators were supporting, do get that following capital to make it all the way. And so that's why this program is designed and it's always good to see the success. So, so I talked to you about the seed office. And you know, we can work as with you as a when we are the Coordinating Office coordinating activities from across the 27 different institutes and centers in NIH. So, you know, we are available here to work with you. We can provide joint training webinars and workshops with you, we can guide and support innovators at your university. So just you know, reach out to us. We are always happy to talk. We have here, information on the leadership team for our office, our email address, and we have a new website coming soon. And so we'll have lots more information that you can get and you can also sign up for our listserv. So really glad that we got this opportunity to talk about our office and we'll be happy to take any questions.

Speaker 1  49:17  
Jennifer, Nasim, thank you both so much. I know Jennifer, I've seen you in the background answering a couple of questions that have come through. So thank you for posting those links, attendees. If you have any other questions, please use the q&a option while we wait for any of those to come through. I always like to ask, are there if there's one major takeaway that each of you want to share as you know, a thought for our attendees? What do you think is that one one piece you really want to make sure that they're going home thinking about today? Sorry to put you on the spot.

Speaker 3  49:54  
Oh, well, Jennifer, unmute yourself. I can I can sort of get started. So well. One thing I kind of wanted to really highlight is, I guess it's more than one thing, but I'll kind of put it into a theme. So I want you all to understand that NIH is not just supporting basic research, right. So that's what a lot of people think about when they think and I it's like the big amount of money that goes to basic research, we really understand that, at some point, the basic research for it to have value needs to be translated. And, you know, the discovery that is made has to come to the base. And so, so we are really interested in and it says it in our, in our logo, that right there turning discovery into health. So our goal is to turn the discovery that is made with the basic research and turn it into healthcare solutions, drugs, devices, diagnostics, other tools to help pace and so that we have a number of programs to help support that with a small business SBIR STTR program, definitely being the largest of those in the $1.2 billion. That is that the our program has pledged to do $1.2 billion is by far the largest source of early stage seed capital in biomedical space. So we want you all to sort of take that message and understand that we do that. And it's not just money, I talked about a number of the other resources that we are providing. And so we understand that money alone is not really going to take an idea and turn it into one, you know, drugs, devices, diagnostics, there is all these other resources and understanding of how product development is done understanding of what you need to do to eventually get that approval from FDA and like, how do you need to get paid. So we understand that and we have all those those resources and services. So all any and also, it's not just, it's only small businesses, and you don't have to have a small business already to come and leverage a lot of these product development resources that we are providing. So we want you to understand that and, and we are open to talk to you. So don't hesitate. Don't think that, you know, we want to be talking to you. Anytime you have any questions, we encourage you to reach out to us and we'll be happy to talk to you before you even think about applying and you know, sort of guide you in that process.

Unknown Speaker  52:17  
Jennifer, you're on mute.

Speaker 2  52:21  
I said, you know, however many years of doing virtual scuzzy double unmute. One, I just, I put in a question. If you don't ask questions, I will start asking attendees questions. So but, you know, I'm curious how you currently engage with SBIR STTR programs. But the, I guess, you know, the main takeaway I would have for this community, in the tech transfer space at the universities, is really you for SBA, we want to engage with the ecosystem builders, right, we see that entire ecosystem, when how we connect the missions of the funding agencies, to economic developments, as well as how we individually can support each individual entrepreneur in achieving more, and getting their research and turning those that research into impactful products and services and companies. So I'd say, you know, please sign up for the SBIR support organization monthly calls and let us know, too. We are very open to hearing, you know, how can we help all the innovators that you are engaging with? And how do we make sure that it's it's a diverse community of innovators that is engaging in a program?

Speaker 1  54:03  
Awesome, thank you both. For that insight. I see some quiet chat notes. And some thank yous coming through on the q&a. So it looks like I think we have answered all of those questions. Attendees, don't forget to go into the chat and pull out the links for the success stories that Jennifer shared and use the q&a on the answered section for all sorts of links that were also posted there. And I think with that, I would like to thank you both for such an informative discussion and sharing all this information with our attendees and attendees. Thank you so much for joining today. As a reminder are recording the webinar will be available for viewing on the autumn Learning Center within a few days of the event and it's included in your registration and you can also visit the auto website to take a look at any of our other webinars that you may have missed in the past. And before you sign out when you leave the webinar. Today a survey will pop up We do appreciate you taking a quick minute to complete that to better serve your needs in the future and I thank you all again for joining us and hope you have a great rest of your afternoon so thank you again and we'll see

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