Growth of the MedBlue Incubator

With the continuous growth of the entrepreneurial and research spirt at Duke, the MedBlue Incubator (MBI) space serves at the forefront of helping faculty translate their innovative ideas into a viable commercialization opportunity. Founded in 2013 by a group of Duke physicians motivated to provide support to groups looking to form companies around their research, MedBlue has since expanded to launch over 20 companies, collectively raising nearly $100 million and achieving a 65x return on investment.

Reflecting on the motivation behind MBI’s work, Dr. Dani Bolognesi, president and chair of MBI’s Technology Review Committee, states that their goal was always to help “faculty entrepreneurs move to the next level.” Dr. Allan Kirk, chair of the Board of Directors, credits the success of the incubator space to the team “made up of people who are in academia but have had experience in corporate life,” such that they know what is needed is in bringing a product from bench to market.

The institution-independent program provides a centralized support system, offering research groups access to early-stage investments while simultaneously aiding in securing IP and management teams. “We are a small stepping stone across…one of the first tributaries of a very large river that people have to cross to get to the other side,” notes Dr. Kirk.

Faculty interested in becoming part of the incubator can apply annually through requests for applications or regional financing agreements (RFAs) directed to the steering committee. From there, committee members select leading technology ideas for the directorial board’s final approval.

Dr. Bolognesi notes that technologies backed with firm intellectual property rights and a focus to meet market potential are the ones most likely to receive investments. Expanding on the importance of ‘focus’ in the development of a research group’s idea into a product, Dr. Kirk explains that whereas “discovery is about opening the aperture, collecting whatever you can, making patterns and seeing…a company is about focusing on a direct pathway to a singular project. When that focus hits, you can start making iterations and going in different directions. Narrowing of the aperture is the biggest skill set for an academic…going into becoming a company,” he adds.

Currently, MBI’s portfolio reflects a wide variety of technology interests ranging from medical devices to drug development processes and big data. Many of the groups in the incubator collaborate with both the medical center and biomedical engineering department. These groups often become independent companies of their own or get acquired by larger firms.

One group that was first formed in the MBI was InnAVasc, a company founded in 2015 by current MedBlue CEO Dr. Jeff Lawson. With a background in vascular biology, Dr. Lawson’s research group developed an arteriovenous graft designed to mitigate the bleeding complications associated with repeat hemodialysis treatments. MedBlue was one of the first investors in InnAVasc, supporting the company before it went on to raise over $7 million in investments over the six-year period that it was a part of the incubator.

Reflecting on the role MedBlue played following InnAVasc’s exit from the incubator space, Dr. Lawson notes that, at its core, MBI is a “perpetuating evergreen fund…it’s not meant to generate wealth for us as individuals, but to sustain itself so that we can continue to invest in new investigators.” Almost a decade following his first involvement in the incubator space, Dr. Lawson is now tasked with expanding the reach of MBI in its second phase with MedBlue Incubator 2 (MBI2), which will have a broader investment scope, aiming to support faculty-initiated startups across the Southeast.

“MedBlue 1 basically validated that [the incubator] is a useful tool to seed early investigators, as it had some return and successful exits. If it were to grow…to another scale it would only be more successful as it would have more bandwidth to make people aware of this program who would have better ability to vet ideas,” notes Dr. Lawson.

As the incubator continues to play a crucial role in commercializing academic innovations, the MedBlue Incubator is on its way to securing its position as a key investor in the Southeast startup ecosystem.

Maria Kulapurathazhe is a doctoral student in biomedical engineering.