Hospitals

Cleveland Clinic to help Notre Dame commercialize medical innovations

Following on the heels of two hospitals, the University of Notre Dame has become the first university to strike a collaboration with Cleveland Clinic aimed at commercializing medical innovations from its faculty and researchers. Through the collaboration, Cleveland Clinic Innovations will essentially do for Notre Dame what it does for the Clinic — help turn […]

Following on the heels of two hospitals, the University of Notre Dame has become the first university to strike a collaboration with Cleveland Clinic aimed at commercializing medical innovations from its faculty and researchers.

Through the collaboration, Cleveland Clinic Innovations will essentially do for Notre Dame what it does for the Clinic — help turn employee ideas into marketable products that generate financial returns for the organization.

“By collaborating with Cleveland Clinic Innovations, we are hoping to create marketplace opportunities for our biomedical and health innovations to be a force for good,” said Robert Bernhard, Notre Dame’s vice president for research, in a statement.

Bernhard told the AP that the collaboration with the Clinic would help Notre Dame move ideas and technology from the school to the marketplace faster and help the school make better decisions about what technology to market.

The move to collaborate with the Clinic represents a bid to strengthen Notre Dame’s relatively small technology transfer efforts. The scale of Notre Dame’s research and commercialization activities doesn’t compare particularly favorably to other university leaders in the space.

For example, in 2010, Notre Dame’s research expenditures totaled just $110 million according to the annual survey from the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). Contrast Notre Dame’s research expenditures with preeminent technology transfer universities such as Northwestern University ($492 million) and New York University ($366 million).

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Notre Dame’s 2010 licensing income ($338,000) also fell well short of leaders Northwestern ($180 million) and NYU ($178 million), according to AUTM.

Notre Dame doesn’t have a medical school, according to a statement from the university.

Other members of Cleveland Clinic’s “Healthcare Innovation Alliance” are North-Shore Long Island Jewish Health System in New York and MedStar Health in Maryland.

Cleveland Clinic Innovations says it has spun out 47 companies from the Clinic since its creation in 2000, including Intelect Medical, which was sold to Boston Scientific for $78 million last year.

[Photo from flickr user JMR_Photography]