Pitt innovators turned in another year of remarkable innovation as measured in both numbers and impact in Fiscal 2022.
Following is a brief overview of the fiscal year for the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which is composed of the Innovation Institute, the Big Idea Center for student innovation, the Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships and the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence.
Innovation Institute
Fiscal 2022 resulted in the largest number of license and option transactions (164) and the second highest number of issued patents (105) in university history.
Fueling this strong performance of Pitt innovators seeking to make an impact on the world for their research discoveries is sustained support at every step of the commercialization process. To this end, the Chancellor’s Gap Fund was reauthorized in Fiscal 2022 to provide critical bridge funding for research projects that have demonstrated strong commercialization potential but require key proof of concept experiments or other data or prototypes to attract interest from potential investors or industry partners.
The fund provides grants ranging from $25,000 to $75,000, based on what is needed to advance the project through a significant milestone. A total of $263,0000 was awarded in the most recent cycle.
The university continued to churn out startups in the double digits in Fiscal 2022. One of the year’s startups formed, Avista Therapeutics, which is developing gene therapies for rare eye diseases, has entered into a development agreement with major pharmaceutical company Roche to advance its therapies towards the market.
Previous Pitt startups achieved important milestones during the year. Diamond Kinetics, based in Pittsburgh’s North Shore, announced it had become the youth development platform of Major League Baseball (MLB). Apollo Neuroscience reported it raised $15 million in Series A funding as it ramped up manufacturing and sales of its wellness wearable device that helps users relax, sleep and focus.
And the momentum is sweeping into the early part of Fiscal 2023 as KaliVir Immunotherapeutics, also recently partnered with Roche to develop its platform of genetically modified viruses to treat cancer. And Novasenta, spun out of the university in 2018, announced it has received a $40 million Series A investment to advance its pipeline of antibody-based therapeutics to treat cancer.
Big Idea Center
In some of the year’s most exciting news, the OIE’s Big Idea Center (BIC) operating unit moved into a new 5,000 sq ft space on Forbes Avenue in the middle of Oakland to serve as the hub for student innovation for Pitt students. Additionally, the BIC began making the first investments into student startups through its Big Idea Advantage Fund – a donor-supported investment fund to assist Pitt students in launching their own companies.
Meanwhile, student-led startups had major achievements of their own. FlowCellutions, which is developing a new type of battery tester aimed at advancing sustainable energy solutions. took first place in the Big Idea Center’s Fall Blitz, won the top prize in the Kuzneski Innovation Cup, and the grand prize in the Spring 2022, Randall Family Big Idea Competition.
Hoth Intelligence won prizes the Rice Business Plan Competition totaling an impressive $350,000 with its augmented reality software that allows healthcare providers to “see into” a patient during procedures where physicians are typically operating without such visibility.
Finally, HEARTio, a student digital diagnostics startup, won the $50,000 grand prize at the Baylor University New Venture Competition.
Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships
The Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships enjoyed a very productive year. Industry partnerships are a key approach for Pitt innovators to turn their research into life-enhancing and life-saving new products and services, and the past year has witnessed several new collaborations, such as those with OrangeGrove Bio and Duquesne Light, to name just a few.
Over the last year, the OIEP business development team interacted with over 300 companies and 75 venture capital firms, exploring hundreds of opportunities for research and technology transfer. Within Pitt, OIEP is facilitating a culture shift aimed at helping researchers better connect and collaborate with industry. OIEP also plays a role in helping bring industry partners to major federally funded research programs, such at the $10 billion DOD/DHA Omnibus IV opportunity for which Pitt was selected in Fiscal 2022.
Fiscal 2022 also witnessed the establishment of the Covestro Circular Economy Program at the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation within the Swanson School of Engineering, in partnership with Pittsburgh-based Covestro LLC. This initiative is the first graduate-level circular design program where materials are kept in continuous use by design. The program will enable graduate students at Pitt to become experts in circular economy principles, informed by Covestro’s advances in this area, and ultimately create circular, sustainable products and service solutions. The first cohort of graduate students will be recruited for Fall 2022.
Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence
For the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence, the fiscal year resulted in more than 1,500 engagements with regional small businesses, including assisting with the launch of 60 new businesses, providing services to help deal with supply chain and hiring difficulties, to cope with inflation and continuing to recover from the pandemic.
In FY22, the IEE and its Small Business Development Center (SBDC) held several specialized events designed to connect minority-, women-, and veteran-owned businesses to contract opportunities and other regional resources. More than 400 small business owners attended at least one of these events, opening doors for their own business growth while further diversifying our western PA economic landscape.
The major backstory of the year, meanwhile, was the several major pieces of innovation infrastructure that were announced, progressed, or came online, both on campus and in the region. These historic investments promise to accelerate Pitt-developed innovations on the path to market, generating economic growth and opportunity for our region. To wit:
- The R.K. Mellon Foundation announced the biggest single-project donation in its 74-year history — $100 million – to build the Pitt BioForge, a biotech research and development facility along the Monongahela River at Hazelwood Green. The facility will produce cutting-edge cell and gene therapies and other treatments applying the most advanced research manufacturing capabilities.
- The Assembly, Pitt’s new 250,000 square foot research facility, opened in Bloomfield across from the Hillman Cancer Center. This will leverage the university’s research and clinical expertise in the exciting fields of immunotherapy and cancer research.
- Wexford Associates, The Assembly’s developer, decided to build an additional 100,000 square foot facility for industry partners to work in proximity to Pitt and UPMC researchers and clinicians.
- Nearing completion is the UPMC Mercy Pavilion in the Uptown neighborhood between Downtown and Oakland. The nine-story, 410,000-square-foot vision restoration facility will serve patients who need physical rehabilitation and patients who have vision impairment or who have diseases of the eye. The facility will also include a collaborative space for clinicians, researchers, educators and industry partners.
- At the Pittsburgh International Airport, a new advanced manufacturing research and development park is under construction. Under the name Neighborhood 91, this site will allow Pitt engineering faculty and students that ability to collaborate on additive manufacturing initiatives alongside industry partners.
- For promising life science startups, the LifeX life sciences accelerator transformed into a “capital growth company” with the addition of a pre-seed investment fund to provide early-stage funding for the critical period in between company launch and the achievement of market or clinical milestones.
The progress of the Pittsburgh innovation ecosystem is getting noticed. Startup Genome, a leading policy advisory and research organization for public and private entities committed to accelerating the success of their startup ecosystems, reported in May 2022, that Pitt jumped up 10 spots in its ranking of the top 100 emerging global startup ecosystems, from #23 to #13. In North America, it ranked Pitt as the #5 emerging ecosystem.