Discovery to Market

New research discoveries from federal intramural laboratories typically reach the market via transfer of the underlying technology to private companies for further development and commercialization. This technology transfer process at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) has been assisted by MBA students from Johns Hopkins University’s (JHU) Carey Business School in a year-long “Discovery to Market” (D2M) technology transfer course, in which students conduct feasibility studies to determine how discoveries and inventions could be launched as commercial products. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command’s (USAMRMC) Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) have successfully used partnership agreements with this local academic institution to enhance their own productivity, while also providing practical student experiences relating to entrepreneurship, biomedical innovation, and medical product development. 

In the D2M program, MBA students at Carey Business School, after learning the fundamentals of technology commercialization and entrepreneurship, gain access to review cutting-edge biomedical technologies in the commercialization pipeline at NIH and USAMRMC technology transfer offices (TTOs). The MBA teams then evaluate the technology to identify the value proposition of the invention, a market feasibility analysis. TTO licensing associates and scientists from the research institutions receive the analysis and specific action items, including potential licensing opportunities, to better manage the innovations—from finding new commercial partners to dropping technologies with poor commercialization prospects—thus saving money. With its focus on practical experience and outcomes, D2M has become very popular with MBA students as well as TTO licensing staff and scientists. 

Because they are the “client” for the business analysis conducted by the MBA student teams, technology licensing associates at the laboratories have found the reports very useful. When reports for the technologies show insufficient commercial opportunity or other unsurmountable problems, the reports can be used as justification for dropping further technology transfer activities for a given case, saving the laboratory from further patent expenses. 

When the reports from the MBA students are positive, the technology licensing associate receives an “action plan” with specific activities identified. These have resulted in additional research collaborations for the laboratories or new licensing partners for the underlying technology.

Awardees

NIH - Office of Technology Transfer

• Steven Ferguson

U.S. Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center

• Ronald Marchessault, Jr.

Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

• Toby Gordon
• Nayoung Louie
• Supriya Munshaw