Locations:
Searchby Saqib Sachani, PhD, MBA, Director, Innovations Business Development and Licensing
Saqib Sachani, PhD, MBA, Director, Innovations Business Development and Licensing, examines how Academic Medical Centers accelerate healthcare innovation through strategic de-risking, industry partnerships, and thoughtful commercialization pathways. Dr. Sachani highlights how digital transformation and clinical validation are bringing groundbreaking medical solutions to patients faster than ever before.
The past five years have witnessed a transformative evolution in healthcare technology commercialization, with COVID-19 serving as a powerful catalyst for digital transformation. The integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analytics has opened new frontiers in personalized medicine and healthcare delivery. Academic medical centers (AMCs) like Cleveland Clinic have been at the forefront of this revolution, investing in cutting-edge research facilities that create consistent pipelines of innovation. The expansion of incubators, accelerators, and innovation districts has provided crucial support systems for early-stage development, offering mentorship and access to funding from various grant sources. From therapeutics and diagnostics to medical devices and digital health solutions, we're seeing significant advances that promise to reshape patient care.
At Cleveland Clinic Innovations, we employ an innovative, multi-step approach to de-risking novel technologies during early development stages. This process begins with comprehensive market analysis and feasibility studies to understand the problem, identify customer needs, and assess market potential. Our technology development team then works to prototype, build, or design the next iteration of promising innovations, determining key experiments needed to add value, derisking the technology resulting in advancing the technology that makes it attractive for partnering. As an AMC, our unique advantage lies in access to KOLs with significant research and clinical expertise, allowing us to validate problems and solutions in real-world settings. By bringing industry partners to the table early, we can accelerate commercialization pathways, ultimately getting innovations to patients faster and more effectively.
Strategic partnerships are essential for commercializing AMC innovations. These collaborations with established companies provide critical resources including funding, technical expertise, and access to distribution channels. Whether through co-development agreements, joint ventures, or licensing deals, strategic partners help bridge the gap between research and market entry, offering valuable insights into industry trends. For example, our recent 10-year Master Service Agreement with LifeArc, a British life science medical research charity, enables the development of humanized antibodies, moving them closer to clinical use. These relationships create win-win scenarios where Cleveland Clinic researchers work closely with partners to advance cutting-edge research innovations and unmet needs.
Sponsored research collaborations have become increasingly vital to accelerate healthcare innovation commercialization. Institutions like Cleveland Clinic, with its renowned Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and experts across a wide range of medical specialties, are particularly well-positioned to benefit from and contribute to these partnerships. These collaborations are not one-size-fits-all; they encompass a wide range of collaborative efforts. For example, they include supporting development and validation of novel diagnostic tests, therapeutics, digital tools or medical devices. Cleveland Clinic brings to these partnerships not only its foundational scientific discoveries, often stemming from years of dedicated research, but also its state-of-the-art laboratories and facilities. The synergy created when AMCs and industry combine forces is powerful — contributing to foundational research and specialized expertise, while industry partners provide resources for scale-up, regulatory navigation, and commercialization strategy. These cutting-edge resources, coupled with the expertise of its KOLs, allow for the development of innovative solutions and a substantial portfolio of intellectual property. This includes unique research tools and models, assays, and protocols that have been developed at Cleveland Clinic and hold the potential to address significant unmet needs in various disease areas.
In today's competitive and often resource-constrained funding environment, these collaborations are especially valuable, as they enable both parties to leverage their respective strengths. The result is faster product development cycles and accelerated delivery of new treatments to patients. Sponsored research provides an alternative pathway, allowing both academic institutions like Cleveland Clinic and industry partners to leverage their respective strengths and resources more effectively. This collaborative approach not only mitigates financial risks but also fosters a shared commitment to achieving a common goal: the rapid development and deployment of innovative solutions. The ultimate result is a significantly faster product development cycle, leading to the accelerated delivery of new and improved treatments, diagnostics, and medical devices to the patients who need them most. Furthermore, the close interaction between Cleveland Clinic researchers, with their deep understanding of unmet clinical needs, and industry professionals fosters a valuable exchange of knowledge and perspectives, enriching the research process and driving further innovation. This creates a positive feedback loop, where successful collaborations lead to further advancements and a stronger overall healthcare ecosystem.
The allocation of funds for invention development programs is a strategic process guided by three key principles: addressing unmet clinical needs, evaluating the potential for widespread scalability, and ensuring alignment with the institution's overall strategic objectives. We strategically utilize the gap funding mechanism to help researchers move their innovations from the lab to the market, providing crucial resources for proof-of-concept work and de-risking the technology. Success of these program is measured using a multi-faceted approach. Quantitative metrics, such as the number of patents filed, licensing deals secured, startups formed and patient-impact, provide a tangible measure of progress. However, the most crucial and ultimately defining metric is the positive impact on patients – specifically, quantifying how many patients gain access to and benefit from the solutions developed through these funded initiatives.
The decision to license a technology versus creating a startup involves numerous strategic considerations. Licensing may be appropriate for technologies with clear market applications and established industry partners ready to commercialize. However, for early-stage technologies with unconventional paths to market, disruptive innovations requiring further development, or platform technologies with multiple applications, the startup route often proves advantageous. Startups allow greater control over a technology's trajectory and potentially higher long-term returns. Success in this pathway requires a strong innovation ecosystem, market readiness preparation, the right team composition, and robust scientific data—all elements we cultivate at Cleveland Clinic Innovations as we work to transform promising research into solutions that improve patient outcomes.
As we stand at this exciting intersection of medical science, technology, and patient care, Cleveland Clinic Innovations continues to serve as the vital bridge between groundbreaking academic research and real-world healthcare solutions. Our success lies not just in the technologies we develop, but in our ability to forge strategic relationships that accelerate innovation and overcome traditional barriers to commercialization. By thoughtfully balancing risk and opportunity—whether through licensing partnerships, startup ventures, or collaborative research—we're creating pathways that bring life-changing innovations to patients faster than ever before. In this era of unprecedented technological advancement, our mission remains clear: to transform promising ideas into tangible healthcare solutions that improve and save lives worldwide. The collaborative model we've established between academia, industry, and clinical practice represents not just the future of medical innovation, but the foundation upon which tomorrow's healthcare breakthroughs will be built.
