Business school to aid research

University researchers now have a hand in converting their ideas into marketable products through a program that could eventually extend to the whole UNC system.

N.C. BioStart creates business models for researchers seeking to launch startup companies to market their innovations.

Researchers with ideas for new drugs, therapies and medical devices will collaborate with external consultants as well as faculty and students from Kenan-Flagler Business School to design plans for their products.

“This should provide them with a small amount of money to get them off the ground,” said Cathy Innes, the director of the Office of Technology Development at UNC.

Innes said right now there are 15 candidates at UNC who could potentially receive support from the program. Each grant could be worth as much as $50,000.

The grant should be enough to do the basic preparation for a business plan and market analysis to convince major partners to invest, said Ted Zoller, executive director of the Center of Entrepreneurial Studies in the business school.

The goal of N.C. BioStart is to support UNC faculty members such as Richard Samulski and Xiao Xiao, who started their own pharmaceutical company in 2003 before the program was founded.

Samulski is leading the country’s first gene therapy trial for Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy. He and Xiao formed their company and received millions in funding from the Muscular Dystrophy Association to continue their work.

Without grants from programs such as N.C. BioStart, many of the faculty’s ideas would be sold to pharmaceutical giants — sometimes ending with ideas getting lost in the shuffle or inventors not getting the credit or profit they deserve, Zoller said.

“Many of these researchers have tactical innovations that could change the face of our world,” Zoller said. “The goal is to support the innovators.”

However, the process is just starting, said Margaret Dardess, associate vice chancellor for strategic alliances in the UNC School of Medicine.

 Dardess said they are still finding funding for grants and considering expanding eligibility to all UNC faculty.

Innes said they hope to extend the program to N.C. State University in the next three years if it is successful and then they will consider extending it to other schools in the UNC system as well.

“The process has started, and I think it’s working,” said Dardess. “I think this will make it easier for faculty to translate their ideas into commercial practice.”



Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.