A UNIT OF THE U-M MEDICAL SCHOOL OFFICE OF RESEARCH
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New this month
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Happy New Year! 2017 was another exciting year for the Fast Forward Medical Innovation (FFMI) team as we continued to expand our program and push the boundaries of biomedical innovation to help accelerate ideas to impact. We invite you to CLICK HERE to browse our fiscal year 2017 metrics and cumulative impact since our 2014 launch.
Commercialization Funding and Mentorship: This past fiscal year, there were 175 invention reports from U-M Medical School investigators, an increase from previous years due in large part to FFMI's early and mid-stage funding programs, Mi-Kickstart and Mi-TRAC (in partnership with U-M Tech Transfer). In total, FFMI has directly supported 80+ life science technology projects with funding and mentorship resulting in seven new companies and more than $13 million in follow-on funding thus far. We recently received a renewal from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation for the MTRAC for Life Sciences Innovation Hub, a $4 million annual funding program supporting biomedical innovations across all U-M schools and colleges, and now non-profit Universities and Health Systems across the entire state of Michigan.
Business Development & Industry Partnerships: The Medical School received over $98.1 million in industry funding in FY 2017 - 17% of the school's overall research funding and a 100% increase since 2012. The FFMI Business Development (BD) team, and key collaborators like the Business Engagement Center, helped develop novel industry partnerships with our investigators engaged in translational research. This year, the BD team helped facilitate many strategic relationships, including a collaboration with AstraZeneca that targets chronic kidney disease.
Commercialization Education: The FFMI Program Accelerating Commercialization Education (PACE) continues to add new programs and opportunities for learners at all levels. To date, over 2,500 participants have been a part of 65+ commercialization education programs, including the FFMI fastPACE Train-the-Trainer course now available to institutions across the nation. FFMI is working closely with the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, the NIH's NCATS and its CTSA program to scale the FFMI fastPACE program to CTSAs across the country.
We are very excited to work with the Medical School's Program in Basic Sciences (PIBS) to create two credit-bearing graduate level commercialization education courses for graduate students and postdocs. And U-M's Path of Excellence in Innovation and Entrepreneurship continues to expand its offerings to medical students. This year, FFMI was honored to receive a highly competitive $500,000 i6 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration's Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program to continue to expand our portfolio of scalable regional education and training programs.
New this year, we launched a blog with a focus on making innovation and entrepreneurship a natural and expected academic behavior. Please visit our latest post that discusses the barriers faced by innovators in University-based Academic Medical Centers and strategies on how to overcome them.
2018 holds an incredible amount of potential to make an even greater impact on biomedical research and patient impact. We look forward to exploring and creating more groundbreaking opportunities and initiatives that support our colleagues and external partners as they move their ideas down the commercialization path, with the ultimate goal of improved patient care.
Best regards,
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Kevin Ward, M.D. Executive Director Fast Forward Medical Innovation |
Connie Chang, M.B.A. Managing Director Fast Forward Medical Innovation |
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Registration Open for FFMI
fastPACE and FFMI
fastPACE Train-the-Trainer
Courses start March 2018
Do you have an innovative idea? Are you looking for funding, collaboration, and mentorship? FFMI is launching the 8th cohort of the
FFMI fastPACE course on March 16, 2018. The 4-week course is designed to equip biomedical faculty and researchers with the knowledge and tools to navigate the initial process of commercialization.
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U-M GI Innovation Fund RFP Available
Proposal submissions due March 30
Are you a researcher working in the GI or other related fields and interested in innovation and commercialization?
Proposal submission deadline is March 30, 2018
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There are two tiers of funding available. Tier I Awards will be in the range of $25-$50K and fund projects that address a discrete milestone that is critical to the advancement of research to the point of product development. Tier II Awards will be $75-$100K and fund projects with specific milestones for proof-of-concept and later-stage translational studies (ranges are estimates and actual funding levels will be project-specific).
Questions? Email
Visha Krishnan, FMFI Senior Business Analyst, or call 734-764-2891.
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Applications are due on Thursday, February 1.
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Questions? Please contact MTRAC for Life Sciences Tech Mining Specialist,
Michelle Larkin or MTRAC for Life Sciences Tech Mining Specialist,
Sara Johnson.
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Mi-Kickstart Proposal Workshop
Webinar provides help with early-stage project funding application
On Monday, January 8, FFMI hosted a webinar that walked through the
Mi-Kickstart early-stage funding award proposal, and offered guidance and tips for a successful submission.
CLICK HERE to see a video of the workshop.
Participants gained valuable insight, including:
- How to write a successful proposal with step-by-step instructions from the FFMI team
- The opportunity to view funded proposals to analyze successful strategies
- The chance to ask specific questions directly to the FFMI team of commercialization pathway experts
- Individual project-specific coaching, including the opportunity to follow up directly for additional guidance
Mi-Kickstart Awards are given quarterly, with proposals due November 1, February 1, May 1, and August 1 of each year. Stay tuned for more information about the next Mi-Kickstart proposal workshop.
Questions? Please contact MTRAC for Life Sciences Tech Mining Specialist, Michelle Larkin or MTRAC for Life Sciences Tech Mining Specialist, Sara Johnson.
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On the Road with FFMI
Connie Chang, FFMI Managing Director; Brad Martin, MTRAC for Life Sciences Commercialization Program Director; and Hirak Parikh, Monroe-Brown Biomedical Seed Fund Manger, along with representatives from the U-M Tech Transfer Office, attended the J.P. Morgan Heathcare Conference in San Francisco. The team had the opportunity to meet with a number of groups including venture capital, strategic industry partners, and academic innovation organizations, and promote U-M biomedical innovation programs and opportunities for collaboration.
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Cancer Vaccine Technology for Enhanced Immunotherapy
Potent nano-vaccine strategy shows promising results
Cancer affects millions of people in the United States and is among the leading causes of death worldwide.
Cancer immunotherapy, driven by the recent success of immune checkpoint inhibitors, is revolutionizing cancer treatments. However, only a subset of patients currently responds to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Thus, there is a critical need for new powerful approaches for cancer immunotherapy.
University of Michigan team Anna Schwendeman, Ph.D., and James Moon, Ph.D., are targeting antigen delivery as an alternative, complementary approach to immunotherapy. By using a novel synthetic high-density lipoprotein (sHDL) nanodisc mixed with antigen peptides and adjuvants, they produced a potent cancer vaccine that is better able to stimulate the immune system than traditional vaccine approaches.
"We evaluated different nanoparticle vaccine systems, but came across many challenges," says Dr. Schwendeman. "With this new nanodisc-based vaccine, we hope to elicit anti-tumor immunity regardless of pre-existing immunity, broaden T-cell responses, leading to improved patient response rates, and establish immunity against relapse."
The team's data has shown that the sHDL nanodiscs enhanced delivery of antigens to draining lymph nodes by 28 fold (compared with the soluble vaccine group) and stimulated strong anti-tumor T-cell immunity. Importantly, the nanodiscs, in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors, eliminated tumors in multiple mouse models.
"The MTRAC funds allowed us to optimize the nanodisc formulation, benchmark the nanodiscs against other gold standards, and obtain crucial proof-of-concept data demonstrating potent efficacy of our nanodisc technology against large, hard-to-treat tumors," says Dr. Moon. "With these exciting results in hand, we were able to garner additional financial support from the Monroe Brown Seed Fund and start a new biotech company, EVOQ Therapeutics, LLC. We are now focusing our efforts to translate our results to the clinic."
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In Other News
The U-M Coulter Translational Research Partnership Program announced its 2018 Call for Proposals. The Coulter Program funds collaborative translational research projects between Engineering and Clinical faculty co-investigators. For more information, visit the
website or download Coulter proposal instructions and the application form
here. The deadline is February 2, 2018. For questions, please contact Thomas Marten,
Coulter Program Director, at
tmarten@umich.edu or 734-647-1680.
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