At the annual meeting on April 20 of Notre Dame medical alumni, representatives of Cleveland Clinic Innovations (CCI) presented about the Healthcare Innovation Alliance, which the University of Notre Dame joined early last year. The alliance includes centers across the United States, including the Innovation Institute of California, North Shore-LIJ Health System of New York, MedStar Health, and Ohio State University.
“Notre Dame is a university without a medical center, and Cleveland Clinic is a medical center without a university,” said Brian Kolonick, associate general manager of innovation alliances at CCI. “What we’re able to do through this partnership is tie not only the Cleveland Clinic, but also our other alliance partners to take ideas that are coming out of Notre Dame and couple them with experts who are working on the front line in health care. Health care is changing rapidly. The common goal is to be able to put patients first and deliver technologies that would benefit and extend patent lives.”
CCI has 65 full-time employees focused on moving innovations such as therapeutic devices to market, said Neil Veloso, director of commercialization. The process begins with an invention disclosure form related to patentability and includes validating the technology and seeking opportunities to bring it to market through licensing or developing a spin-off company.
The 92-year-old Cleveland Clinic, Ohio’s second-largest employer after Wal-Mart, formed CCI to provide expertise and personnel to commercialize innovations. It is ranked in the top five among innovative companies in health care, with 1,800 patent applications, 425 issued patents, $166 million commercialization grants, 55 spin-off companies and 450 product licenses. The innovations have created more than 1,000 jobs.