Albany Medical College (also a 2014 RIS i6 Challenge grantee)

Earlier this year, New York’s Capital Region Economic Development Council (CREDC) identified the biotechnology sector as a significant economic opportunity for our region.  Albany Medical College (AMC), which is collocated with the only tertiary care medical center in upstate New York and a newly established Biomedical Acceleration & Commercialization Center (BACC), immediately formed a project team to identify and survey national centers of excellence in this cluster to determine a best of class commercialization model.  Feedback gathered this past spring was consistent: academic commercialization models that possess experienced bio executives, access to available seed capital, and efficient technology transfer processes have a much higher rate of success than those that lack these critical tools.

AMC will design and create a seed capital investment infrastructure.  Once the architecture of the fund is determined, AMC will create a $1M-$2M Bio Innovation Seed Fund.  Once established, the proceeds will provide capital for early-stage product demonstration and, in some cases, prototype cycles.

The Bio Innovation Seed Fund will (1) facilitate increased opportunities for proof of concept, product demonstration, and prototypes for early stage projects and products being developed by physicians, engineers, and entrepreneurs in the region; and encourage private investment leveraging of federal, state, and regional economic development funding and initiatives and support innovation and entrepreneurship.