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Just for a minute forger the blues and Beale Forget the Peabody Ducks or Forget the Mississippi Riveror . Strilp those things away and one of the things that hasbuilg Memphis’ economy and national reputation is big, but likely not as sexy. Medical researcheras toil quietly away behind hundreds of lab doors in the They are immediately linked to visionsof microscopes, petri dishes and beakers. But some scientists anyway, want to also be linkeed to the board room andsales meetings. They want to get theird fingers dirty in the businesdof science. Some don’t.
But no matter their there are places to turn to when they are readyg to turn the academic fruits of theitr labors into somethingmore spendable. The logo for the shows the school’s mascot leaping out to the world withthe “This little Tiger goes to market.” “Medical research has a huge impactt in Memphis simply because of companies like , and says the office’s director Kevih Boggs. “There certainly needs to be more of that and more broadf recognition of thebiosciences here.” Boggws says roughly one-third of the ideas that could be licensed out of U of M now coulr have medical uses.
The “could” part is he says, because it’w not always so apparent how an idea couldbe marketed. fully developed a product. So, he brainstorms with them and togethere they hammer outa product, something with marketable potential they could show an angel investor or a venture capital “I’ll sound crazy in a heartbeat at the risk of missingy something,” Boggs says of the brainstorming process. Once a solid idea is Boggs begins reaching outto investors. He’ll talk to professionals he’x known throughout his career, send focused mailers or simpl cold callpotential investors.
More and more Boggs is workint to build a foundation of entrepreneurs in the Memphisx community that are looking to take up a company and get behind a piece ofmedical research. At the same he can look to his counterparts in the communityh likeRichard Magid, directoer of the . UTRF and the technology transfedr office are licensed assmall corporations, but are charted throughb the Tennessee General Assembly. They work solely for their the and the Uof M.
Magid says, gives his organization tremendous advantagex the universitywould not, like adhering to open records “When you’re doing business deals with privatse companies, you’re giving them confidential data and they’r giving you trade secrets in return,” Magisd says. “You don’t want someone with a grudge to file for a publi c record and start looking at theid proprietarybusiness information.” UTRF can also hold equity in Magid says. That helps as most start-ups are cash UTRF just wants a piece of the he says, and is not looking for any cash up This gives researchers more wiggle room to develop theifr ideas into products.
Magid and Boggs say their busineszs models are quite common amongstats schools. Private universities like can directly hold stakes in privatr companies andoften do. For state schools, Magidr says, sometimes all it takes is one. “Iv you get that one home run, you can changse the face of the Magid says. “Tallahassee developed a synthetic way to make a breastcancer drug, and that made them hundreds of millionxs of dollars. Also, think about Gatorade at the .” St. white coat Hub is the largest medical researcj organizationin Memphis. Roughly 2,000 white-coated Ph.D.z walk on hundreds of thousands of squarde feet of lab spacethere daily.
While the hospital’s technology transfer representative declined to be interviewed for this the hospital has a split model forcommercializing medicine.