CSU poised to speed research into marketplace

FORT COLLINS - Ian Orme has been on a personal mission to develop a cure for one of the planet's most deadly diseases throughout his entire career.

Orme, a professor in the Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology department at Colorado State University, believes he is on the verge of producing a tuberculosis vaccine that could help save millions of lives each year and prevent millions more from becoming infected.

Earlier this year, CSU announced that Orme and his research team had developed a novel vaccine to prevent tuberculosis by activating specific immune system functions that enhance the response to the bacterium that causes TB.

"I took a natural protein from TB and fused it to another protein as a nice juicy target. It's pretty bloody clever, actually," said Orme, who was born in Great Britain and has spent the last 21 years doing research and teaching at CSU.

The university, which has more than 100 faculty, staff and students researching TB, is considered a world leader in basic science leading to new preventive vaccines and medical treatments for the disease.

But until recently, moving research that could benefit humankind into the marketplace has not been a quick or easy process. Orme started his own company, Mycos Research LLC, in 1997 to help take CSU breakthroughs in TB research into commercial production and distribution.

"The reason I started Mycos was because, at that time, a commercialization pipeline didn't exist at CSU," Orme said.

But that was then. Ten years later there is a much more focused process at CSU for getting vaccines and treatments for a variety of diseases into the marketplace.

Enter the 'superclusters'

Alliances of academic researchers across multiple disciplines and business experts who know how to quickly market cutting-edge technology have formed into "superclustsers." CSU's first supercluster is aimed at developing treatments for infectious disease, and its second is focused on fighting cancer.

Both were launched this year, a move that Orme said was long overdue.

"That's what we should have done 10 years ago," he said. "What CSU's doing and what industry's doing is driving that into a pipeline to (funding entities) to actually get things going."

Terry Opgenorth, who spent 20 years with Abbott Laboratories' Global Pharmaceutical Research and Development division, was recently hired by CSU to serve as the chief operating officer for NeoTREX and MicroRx, the respective enterprise arms of the cancer and infectious disease superclusters.

"My role is to identify research that can be developed beyond the research laboratory," Opgenorth said. "In our case, since we're not-for-profit, the commercialization is a big factor, but not the biggest."

Opgenorth explained that much of the superclusters' goal is to benefit humanity, especially people living in poverty.

"It's a real challenge, but one we'd all expect a university to take on for the public good," he said. "The world is truly global and you never know what a person who gets on a plane next to you has been exposed to."

Opgenorth, who started his duties at CSU in September, said efforts to get MicroRx and NeoTREX up and running have just begun.

"But the objective is to develop some real partnerships and find more places where things like Dr. Orme's research can find a place in the marketplace," he said.

Those partnerships could include major foundations, large pharmaceutical companies, government and start-up businesses.

Opgenorth said the potential for CSU to capitalize on infectious disease treatments - primarily needed in poor and developing countries - is limited, although cancer treatments hold more profit promise.

"It is the goal to license things out to companies and to receive royalties or start up a company where the university owns some portion of it," he said. "I think there's a lot of potential for economic impact."

Money not main focus

But William Farland, CSU's vice president for research, said making money for the university is not the main focus of the superclusters.

"I think the intent here is to move some of this intellectual property out of the university to solve problems," he said. "In terms of receiving income and royalty streams, all the better. But the intent is to make a return on the investment that's been made into the university."

Since 2003, the amount of research funding coming into the university - mostly from federal government agencies such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - has increased 49 percent. Last year's total of $296 million set another new record and was 11 percent higher than the year before.

The Department of Defense is interested in developing antidotes to infectious disease agents, such as anthrax, that could be used as weapons. Part of the work that will be conducted at CSU's Rocky Mountain Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, a super-secure research facility unveiled Oct. 2, will be focused on national defense needs.

The $30 million facility will house the Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, where researchers will collaborate on developing new vaccines, drugs and diagnostics and be trained in biosecurity issues.

Real-world ventures

Much of what CSU researchers develop in their laboratories that shows demonstrated effectiveness in animal trials can now be transferred to the real-world marketplace, thanks to the superclusters concept, MicroRx and NeoTrex, and CSU Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Colorado State University Research Foundation.

Mark Wdowik, CSU Ventures CEO, said his goal is to simplify the process of turning intellectual property into marketable products.

"CSU Ventures is designed to be a business enterprise - it is a business," he said. "Under the traditional model, we tend to push technologies out and see if anyone is interested. Under the new model, we go out and see what the needs are and then go back to meet those needs, which is much more proactive."

Wdowik predicted that CSU Ventures will be forming more partnerships with CSU entrepreneurs wanting to launch their research into the marketplace with the assistance of federally funded small business technology transfer programs.

"You're going to see more spinoff companies coming out of CSU, probably three to four a year across various disciplines," he said. "By forming these start-up companies, it brings in additional early-stage funding to validate some of these technologies and that means more jobs for Fort Collins and the surrounding area."

Wdowik said he believes CSU has found a winning combination to turning research into vaccines and other products that can both benefit humanity and help the local economy.

"I think having the supercluster concept and CSU Ventures to figure out how to get these products out to those who need it - that's really what it's all about."