Gift Creates Technology Transfer Center at Cleveland ClinicGift Creates Technology Transfer Center at Cleveland Clinic

Originally Published MDDI February 2004

NEWSTRENDS

Erik Swain

As a result of a $5 million gift, the Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland) will creates a new center for technology transfer and biomedical innovation. The center will focus on turning medical discoveries into products to benefit patients and should lead to partnerships and collaborations with medical device companies.

The Ferchill Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer is believed to be the first philanthropically endowed technology transfer program in the United States. The benefactor is Cleveland developer John J. Ferchill and his family. 

The center will be part of Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF) Innovations, the clinic's technology transfer and commercialization division. The gift is to endow a chair and to support collaboration between the clinic and early-stage companies in the Cleveland area. Some funds are likely to go to programs involving companies that want to move to the city to collaborate with the clinic.

The center will have both internal and external boards to help it decide which projects to fund. The internal board will consist of clinicians and researchers at the clinic, and the external board will consist mostly of venture capitalists. 

“Right now, we have partnership relationships with about a dozen companies, which are either ones we've created ourselves or are early-stage companies seeking to access the Cleveland Clinic's clinical or research capabilities,” says Christopher Coburn, executive director of CCF Innovations. “This gift, coupled with the Innovation Summit begun in 2003, accelerates what we have been doing here and adds to the level of excitement. It sends an important message and should enable us to engage additional donors and leverage additional dollars. It reinforces the message that there are technologies in the institution that could have substantial impact on the clinical and economic dimensions. We will try to use the clinic's special place in the [healthcare] market to provide a unique environment for spin-offs.”

The collaborations could extend to larger device companies on projects that develop licensing or have widespread commercialization potential, Coburn says. “I fully anticipate that the companies participating with us in the innovation center would be linked with larger device companies directly or down the road,” he adds. 

Currently, the clinic spins off three or four companies and licenses 25–30 technologies per year, Coburn said. In 2002 it was responsible for 131 inventions, and 2003 saw a similar number. 

Joseph F. Hahn, MD, the chairman of CCF Innovations, will hold the program's first endowed chair.

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