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It’s been a record year for innovation at Rutgers University, and for the Innovation Ventures team in the Office for Research, despite the challenges and new reality that came with the COVID-19 pandemic. Even limited access to laboratories, countless Zoom meetings, and the burnout many experienced over the past year could not stop the Rutgers Research and Innovation engine.

On the contrary, Rutgers researchers – and the staff who support them – met the moment and strengthened the growth of research while all critical functions of research continued. The numbers speak for themselves.

In Fiscal Year 2021, 64 U.S. patents and 128 global patents were issued for Rutgers innovations, 154 inventions were disclosed, and 400 agreements were negotiated and signed through the efforts of the Innovation Ventures team bringing a record $42.6 million in licensing revenue to Rutgers. Also, five new startups were formed, bringing the total number of active Rutgers startups to 88.    

“Supporting and growing the innovation pipeline at Rutgers by partnering with our community of innovators has enabled us to advance life-changing discoveries into the market that improve lives and communities around the world,” said Tatiana Litvin-Vechnyak, PhD, associate vice president for Innovation Ventures. “Doing this at a time when life showed us how fragile it could be, and with the level of success that we experienced, is a testament to what focus, teamwork and commitment can achieve through purposeful research and innovation.”

Through its early-stage technology development funding opportunities, like TechAdvance® and the HealthAdvance Fund®, Innovation Ventures also supported Rutgers innovators with funding and mentoring to advance promising innovations and technologies towards commercialization. Since its inception in 2017, TechAdvance awarded nearly $4.5 million in funding to Rutgers innovators for technologies in a wide range of disciplines and HealthAdvance, which was created in 2019, awarded $2.1 million for health-related technologies.

“Since 2017, TechAdvance has funded a total of 68 applications, with 42 of these projects completed and several leading to either out-licensing or significant follow-on funding from major sponsors,” said Eusebio Pires PhD, senior manager of TechAdvance. “Our goal is to help reduce technology risk and to aid strategic patenting efforts by providing Rutgers innovators with support and access to industry expertise in order to boost their chance for success along the commercialization journey.”  

Modeled after TechAdvance, the HealthAdvance Fund was created to advance early-stage life sciences technologies as part of the Rutgers Optimizes Innovation initiative with funding from the National Institutes of Health Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program and support from Rutgers Office for Research, Rutgers-New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences, and Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences.

“Rutgers has a longstanding history and commitment of supporting translational research and encouraging a technology commercialization mindset among our research community,” said Pragati Sharma, PhD, assistant director for the HealthAdvance Fund. “With support from leadership, we were able to build an efficient workflow of applications solicitation, review, award, and project management under HealthAdvance. I am very excited to lead this internal gap-funding program that focuses on advancing Rutgers innovations with an impact on human health through monetary support as well as industry experts’ consultation.”

In the coming months, Innovation Ventures will roll out new initiatives and programs to continue its mission of partnering with the Rutgers community to encourage deliberate innovation, protect and leverage Rutgers intellectual property, foster collaboration with industry, and enable entrepreneurship. To learn more, visit innovate.rutgers.edu

Contact Innovation Ventures: innovate@research.rutgers.edu