The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University is launching the Impact Accelerator, an initiative to accelerate the translation of scientific breakthroughs into beneficial societal impacts and to dramatically increase economic returns to the Arizona community.
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The Biodesign Institute was created through a significant investment from ASU, the Arizona legislature and Arizona voters, with expected returns in the areas of scientific innovation, workforce development and economic impact. The Biodesign Impact Accelerator is intended to enhance efforts to spur economic development in Arizona.
The Biodesign Institute has developed a vehicle to cross the “valley of death” by bridging the gap between discovery and delivery. Historically, academic technology translation efforts have been impeded due to:
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The high cost of developing innovations like vaccines, diagnostic devices, bio-fuels, and other important advances causes investors in early-stage companies to demand significant proof-of-concept and technology risk reduction that typically are not addressed by the university. Universities generally are not set up to nurture researchthrough this development phase of the commercialization pipeline, so even the most promising university research may not achieve the maturity to prompt investment.
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University spin-out companies have a high failure rate, because they lack the scientific breadth to solve unexpected problems, and this jeopardizes their ability to secure adequate capital to get them over the significant costs involved in overcoming the development challenges.
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Historical approaches are also very slow to deliver results. Licensing of university intellectual property is the traditional means by which universities generate a return on research investments. But royalty revenues are only realized once a device or drug is on the market. Between the patent application process, commercial development, clinical trials and FDA approval, it can take a decade before a discovery made today begins to produce a financial return.
The Impact Accelerator addresses all of these challenges, and is an important vehicle for ASU’s technology marketing and commercialization arm, Arizona Technology Enterprises (AzTE). Rather than waiting for outside investment to spin out a company or license a technology, the Biodesign Impact Accelerator performs the technology risk-reduction process that is critical to making the technology/innovation more attractive to investors, ensuring forward progress of the innovation, and more rapidly generating returns benefitting ASU and the State of Arizona. Impact Accelerator costs will be funded through the following external sources: federal granting agencies, industrial partners, foundations and individual philanthropic investments, venture investors and the ultimate commercialization of research.
