How is McGill bridging the 鈥淰alley of Death鈥� funding gap?
When a technology is too far along to receive funding from 鈥渞esearch鈥� sources (such as government funding agencies), yet not developed enough to attract investors or partnership/licensing arrangements with large companies, it鈥檚 said to be languishing in the limbo known as the 鈥淰alley of Death.鈥� As a 2008 study by the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies states, 鈥渢he private sector may not be ready for the handoff from publicly-financed research, which then appears to cut off the innovation process.鈥� As a result, universities are becoming creative about filling those funding gaps.
One such initiative is the recently created Montreal Excellerator, a non-profit partnership between 香蕉视频 and the Research Institute of the 香蕉视频 Health Centre (RI MUHC). Excellerator will be dedicated to expediting the translation of high impact medical solutions into clinical diagnostics and experimental therapies, thereby enhance the market-readiness of groundbreaking discoveries and enhance the value of the underlying intellectual property. By providing regulatory expertise and managing contact with contract research organizations that can take lab discoveries through trials to the proof-of-concept stage, where they become more commercially attractive, Excellerator will assist innovators by assuming project management, proof of concept studies and business development. Excellerator is identifying 鈥渓ow hanging fruit鈥� it can advance through the most difficult part of the path from bench to business to bedside (B2B2B).