Anderson Benjamin J, Leonchuk Olena, O'Connor Alan C, Shaw Brooke K, Walsh Amanda C
Center for Applied Economics and Strategy, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA.
J Clin Transl Sci. 2021 Nov 22;6(1):e7. doi: 10.1017/cts.2021.878. eCollection 2022.
The National Institutes of Health launched the NIH Centers for Accelerated Innovation and the Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs programs to develop approaches and strategies to promote academic entrepreneurship and translate research discoveries into products and tools to help patients. The two programs collectively funded 11 sites at individual research institutions or consortia of institutions around the United States. Sites provided funding, project management, and coaching to funded investigators and commercialization education programs open to their research communities.
We implemented an evaluation program that included longitudinal tracking of funded technology development projects and commercialization outcomes; interviews with site teams, funded investigators, and relevant institutional and innovation ecosystem stakeholders and analysis and review of administrative data.
As of May 2021, interim results for 366 funded projects show that technologies have received nearly $1.7 billion in follow-on funding to-date. There were 88 start-ups formed, a 40% Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer application success rate, and 17 licenses with small and large businesses. Twelve technologies are currently in clinical testing and three are on the market.
Best practices used by the sites included leadership teams using milestone-based project management, external advisory boards that evaluated funding applications for commercial merit as well as scientific, sustained engagement with the academic community about commercialization in an effort to shift attitudes about commercialization, application processes synced with education programs, and the provision of project managers with private-sector product development expertise to coach funded investigators.
美国国立卫生研究院启动了国立卫生研究院加速创新中心以及研究评估与商业化中心项目，以制定促进学术创业的方法和策略，并将研究成果转化为帮助患者的产品和工具。这两个项目共为美国各地的11个独立研究机构或机构联盟提供了资金。各中心为获得资助的研究人员提供资金、项目管理和指导，并为其研究社区开展商业化教育项目。
我们实施了一项评估计划，包括对获得资助的技术开发项目和商业化成果进行纵向跟踪；对各中心团队、获得资助的研究人员以及相关机构和创新生态系统利益相关者进行访谈，并对行政数据进行分析和审查。
截至2021年5月，366个获得资助项目的中期结果显示，这些技术迄今已获得近17亿美元的后续资金。共成立了88家初创公司，小企业创新研究/小企业技术转让申请成功率为40%，与大小企业签订了17项许可协议。目前有12项技术正在进行临床试验，3项已上市。
各中心采用的最佳做法包括领导团队使用基于里程碑的项目管理、外部咨询委员会对商业价值以及科学性的资助申请进行评估、与学术界就商业化进行持续互动以转变对商业化的态度、申请流程与教育项目同步，以及为项目经理提供具有私营部门产品开发专业知识的人员，以指导获得资助的研究人员。
