Page 28 - Gates-AnnualReport-2018

COMMERCIALIZATION
GRUBSTAKE RESEARCH FUND HITS RICH VEINS
The Gates Grubstake Fund made enormous strides in 2018 in guiding the promising basic science at Anschutz Medical Campus toward commercialization and tangible benefits for patients.
The Grubstake Fund, with multiple awards of about $350,000 each year, is meant to bridge the “valley of death” funding gap that separates a promising medical concept from production and a business model that will make a difference in human lives.
It’s working.
The Gates Center and the CU Innovations Office, its Grubstake Fund collaborator, report that by 2018, the cumulative $3.5 million in Grubstake awards had already produced about $18 million of follow-on funding from partners seeking to help develop and commercialize the concepts.
That “5X” return is remarkable in any financial setting. For the Gates Center, it is confirmation that the mission of collaboration and entrepreneurship in the name of medical advancement is now producing results.
“The Grubstake Fund program has been so game-changing as far as impact and getting research to patients,” said Kim Muller, managing director of CU Innovations. “We are looking at using that model for all therapeutic areas around campus.
We almost feel we have an ethical obligation to do it.”
To date, there are 105 ongoing regenerative medicine projects on campus with potential to compete for Grubstake awards, of which 25 have reached the product development stage. As word spreads of the program’s opportunities for researchers, being selected for the handful of awards has become increasingly competitive.
Diane Gates Wallach, co-chair of the Gates Center Advisory Board, said the 2018 progress report indicates the Grubstake Fund is fulfilling the original concept of the awards as a bridge between bench science and human treatments. The philanthropy of Charles C. Gates and the Gates family provided the foundation of the Gates Center in 2006.
“It’s very consistent with my dad’s philosophy of taking a chance early on with great ideas,” Wallach said. “You know you’re going to drill a dry hole now and then, but you’ve got to try. I think he’d be thrilled if he could see all this creativity. It’s exactly what he’d hoped.”
The Grubstake Fund is focused on accelerating research in the field of regenerative medicine with the potential for direct patient impact. Research eligible for awards includes projects having proof of concept data supporting development as:
28 Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine