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• Treatments (e.g. biologics, small molecules, cell therapies)
• Diagnostics, platforms and research tools (e.g. biomaterials, scaffolds, therapeutic targets, cell expansion methods)
• Devices (e.g. drug delivery, implants, restoration)
• Cell biology and tissue engineering
The Grubstake Fund goes a significant way toward addressing a gap between academia and “the real world” that has existed since the founding of medical schools. Researchers are constantly trying to broaden the impact of their work to help more than an individual patient. Yet when they have a promising concept, their scientific training lacks the background in regulatory approvals and how to access the capital required to prove a concept’s commercial value.
“They’ve never had to intersect with the private sector,” Muller explained. “There’s no education in medical school or at work that helps them prepare for that.”
“A lot of scientists have great ideas and they recognize the scientific importance of what they work on,” said Gates Center Associate Director Mark Petrash, Ph.D., who is also a professor and director of research in the School of Medicine’s Ophthalmology Department. “But what they don’t recognize is the commercial potential of the discoveries they make in their laboratories.”
The Grubstake Fund typically awards three researchers each year with a multi-year grant. The selection process -- overseen by a Scientific Investment Advisory Committee of subject matter experts and institutional investors -- gives weight to projects that appear within three to five years of launching a clinical trial. In addition to funding, the structure set up by the Gates Center, CU Innovations and other supporters provides:
• Access to the resources of the “Startup Toolbox” developed by Gates Center Advisory Board member Ann Sperling and colleagues.
• Mentoring by business experts on- and off-campus, for pathway and business plan development.
• Coaching through the regulatory process required by the Food & Drug Administration and other compliance offices in drug or device development.
• Access to SPARK Colorado run through CU Innovations.
Members of the public who read casually about venture capital in hotbeds like California’s Silicon Valley may assume there are financiers with suitcases full of ready cash hovering aroundallPh.D.s.Butthatkindofcapitaltendstomovein when an idea is ready for mass commercialization, innovation experts said. Before that stage, scientists need money for lab assistants and regulatory help to show that something seen under a microscope has real promise as a treatment.
“When you are at the proof of concept translational stage, that’s where most VCs aren’t going to invest,” said the Gates Center’s Entrepreneur in Residence Heather Callahan, who also serves as portfolio manager at CU Innovations bringing the expertise of an Executive MBA, a law degree and a Ph.D. in biochemistry. “That’s why this was the perfect place in the trajectory of invention to start putting money.”
The money and the mentoring have moved a growing portfolio of projects toward initial clinical trials in the next two to three years.
Dr. Kenneth Liechty is using a 2016 Grubstake Fund award to broaden research into anti-inflammatory mechanisms he discovered as a leading pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital Colorado and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Liechty, the Sandy Wolf Chair in Maternal Fetal Surgery, has perfected techniques for repairing spina bifida and fluid on the lungs in utero.
Wounds in utero heal with limited inflammation and no scarring. Liechty and others have attempted to isolate those mechanisms to benefit adult patients. People living with diabetes, for example, suffer from excessive inflammation and wounds that don’t heal.
The team designed and produced a therapeutic nanoparticle they believed could be efficacious, and tested it in a model employing diabetic mice. Their wounds healed at the rate of non-diabetic skin. “If you can limit injury, you can promote tissue regeneration, and that’s what the Gates Center is all about,” Liechty said.
That’s when Liechty applied for a Grubstake award, to take the model to larger animals, and to support the arduous process of filing for FDA Investigational New Drug status.
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