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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Frontline: NIH Expands Its REACH

Bioresearch got a shot in the arm when the National Institutes of Health announced that three proof-of-concept hubs would join three already existing Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs: The Long Island Bioscience Hub, The University of Louisville and The University of Minnesota.

Q2 2015
Bioresearch just got a shot in the arm. On March 23, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that three proof-of-concept hubs would join three already existing Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH).

Those new REACH awardees are:
  • The Long Island Bioscience Hub: Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory
  • The University of Louisville
  • The University of Minnesota
This brings the total number of REACH hubs to six. The others are the Boston Biomedical Innovation Center, the Cleveland Clinic Innovation Accelerator, and the University of California BRAID Center for Accelerated Innovation.

REACH is based on an initiative created by the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) called the NIH Centers for Accelerated Innovations (NCAI). The hubs will be funded at $9 million over three years.

The goal of REACH is to help speed the translation of basic biomedical discoveries into commercial products such as new drugs, devices, and diagnostics to improve patient care and enhance health.
Researchers at Stony Brook University, which is now part of the new Long Island Bioscience Hub
Researchers at Stony Brook University, which is now part of the new Long Island Bioscience Hub
Stony Brook University’s Center for Biotechnology is receiving its $3 million grant through the SUNY Research Foundation to establish the Long Island Bioscience Hub (LIBH). In doing so, Stony Brook will build upon its strengths in translational research and commercialization to develop and coordinate comprehensive technology commercialization efforts across the three partner institutions. This includes developing technology development programs, establishing strategic partnerships, recruiting experienced entrepreneurs to provide company management, and providing services such as education and mentoring that will help faculty innovators move their academic innovations into the commercial sector via a startup company, licensing opportunity, and/or a strategic partnership.

Samuel Stanley Jr., MD, president of Stony Brook University, believes these efforts will accelerate the yield of new healthcare innovations: “This partnership will advance New York State’s ever-expanding bio-based entrepreneurial ecosystem with new discoveries that fuel new company formation and jobs in biotechnology,” he says.

Clinton T. Rubin, Ph.D., principal investigator, distinguished professor, chair of the Department Biomedical Engineering, and director of the Center for Biotechnology, regards the award as recognition by the NIH in the “great potential for translational research and technology development that resides in our region.”

Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and Brookhaven National Laboratory have a demonstrated capacity for bioscience innovation that has advanced the course of biomedical science and contributed to improved healthcare through FDA-approved therapies, new medical devices, and new company formation including New England BioLabs, OSI Pharmaceuticals, Collagenex, Pharmacopeia, and Exogen.

These centers are a unique public-private partnership whose objective is to change how to identify and develop innovations with scientific and commercial potential. The effort utilizes industry-style project management to arrive at technologies that are poised to launch. With the addition of the REACH, NIH has created a nationwide network of six centers and hubs to develop best practices in translating academic innovations into products to improve health.

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