As an institution, Baylor College of Medicine has helped make Houston and the Texas Medical Center a hub for premium patient care, a destination for exceptional healthcare workers and a spot for scientific research to flourish.

Now, the BCM Innovation Institute wants to make Baylor a place for healthcare innovation, technology development and commercialization.

Dr. Joseph Petrosino, professor and chair of molecular virology and microbiology and chief scientific innovation officer, leads what is now known as Baylor College of Medicine Innovation Institute, a renaming of BCM Ventures.

“The big steps that BCM Ventures took was it allowed the commercialization mission to be aligned with the College values and mission itself,” Petrosino said. “Program leadership was aligned with Baylor’s leadership, which enabled the commercialization process to walk hand-in-hand with faculty and researchers. It was understood that faculty need to publish papers, write grants, grow their research programs, and at the same time, they had this activity to move forward commercializing their intellectual property in a way that wasn’t a detriment to those things.”

Now, Petrosino hopes to build on that foundation with the Innovation Institute. Being situated in the Texas Medical Center, the Institute is positioned to be a hub for biomedical investment and innovation.

“(The TMC) is the largest medical center in the world; it nucleates research and clinical practice and a very large, diverse population in a large metropolitan hub,” Petrosino said. “From sheer size and infrastructure, Houston has a lot of resources.”

How does Baylor faculty work to commercialize their findings?

Petrosino said the activities around commercialization are specific; they include evaluation, identification of intellectual property and having a projected path forward.

Across disciplines and specialties, the Innovation Institute has faculty and researchers with commercialization ideas who also need guidance and expertise from an experienced team of professionals who can provide support, education and business acumen.

“The other set of activities is having a portfolio of companies and mature technologies to market to venture capitalists and investors and pharmaceutical companies – anyone that would like to potentially partner with us,” he said. “Educating and growing the next round of entrepreneurs, so we continue to grow our ecosystem.”

Houston is emerging as the “third coast” in biotech innovation and capitalization, Petrosino said, with San Francisco and Boston as the original two. The reason for that is a “critical mass of expertise, brain power to build out new companies.”

Who in the Baylor community is best suited to start the commercialization process?

Petrosino said starting a business venture is not taught in traditional medical school, which is why the Institute is set up to help people get their ideas off the ground and ready to bring to the marketplace.

“Some people are clearly born with an idea and have the entrepreneurial spirit to build their own company and help build an entity to sell or market a technology – to help make a dream reality and to build a business around that,” he said. “Taking that cadre of people who have that drive and develop, that’s one part of (the institute).”

The other part is helping educate those community members who make the discoveries who are new to the entrepreneurial track, he said.

For the idea-makers, the Institute offers:

• Assessing and protecting the intellectual property (IP) of your innovation
• Championing the development of an IP and the best commercial pathway
• Assisting with invention and idea disclosure
• Driving your innovation forward through resources that include a startup incubator, accelerator programs and faculty mentoring and advisory boards

Find more information in the BCM Innovation Institute’s most recent annual report.

By Julie Garcia, senior communications associate in the Office of Communications and Community Outreach