$31.5M in NIH grants to spur public health innovation

A federal initiative to improve how scientific advances and discoveries are translated into commercially viable products that improve patient care and advance public health led to funding to speed innovations in public health.

The National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) Centers for Accelerated Innovations (NCAIs) will target technologies to improve the diagnosis, treatment, management and prevention of heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders. Cleveland Clinic, Boston Children's Hospital and several University of California entities are the recipients of NIH funding totaling $31.5 million to establish the following three multi-institutional NCAIs:

• Boston Biomedical Innovation Center: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and president and fellows of Harvard College
• Cleveland Clinic Innovation Accelerator: The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine; Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland; Cincinnati Children’s Hospital; The Ohio State University, Columbus; and University of Cincinnati
• UC BRAID Center for Accelerated Innovation: University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Davis; University of California, Irvine; University of California, San Diego; and University of California, San Francisco

"The NCAIs will foster a transformational change in the way basic science discoveries move from the laboratory into commercial products," said Gary H. Gibbons, director of NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), in a release. "These centers essentially will offer a one-stop shop to accelerate the translation of early-stage technologies for further development by the private sector and ultimate commercialization. As a result, the public will gain access sooner to new biomedical products that improve human health while also benefiting from the economic growth associated with the creation of new companies and the expansion of existing ones."

Each center will be a consortium of academic, government, non-profit and private sector organizations that will provide funding for feasibility studies; regulatory, legal and business development expertise; and entrepreneurial training and mentorship. To enhance the scope and impact of the NHLBI investment, each awardee has secured non-federal funding equal to or greater than the NHLBI award.