The laboratory work of Doris Taylor, PhD, the Medtronic-Bakken chair in cardiac repair and director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Cardiovascular Repair, has moved closer to commercial reality following the execution of an exclusive license agreement between the university and Taylor’s start-up company, Miromatrix Medical, Inc. The technology licensed to Miromatrix offers the potential to generate new hearts for ailing patients and to grow human tissue to repair other body parts. In the future, the technology may be used to grow entire organs for patients who need transplants. The license agreement is a major step in U-Minnesota’s technology commercialization efforts, according to Tim Mulcahy, the university’s vice president for research. Taylor’s research “holds the potential to launch an entirely new industry on the scale of the medical device industry,” he says.
In November, Miromatrix hired medical technology veteran Robert Cohen as CEO. After hammering out the business and legal terms of the agreement with officials from U-Minnesota’s OTC, Cohen hopes to close an initial round of financing for the company in coming months and to commercialize a “series of products” based on Taylor’s research “as efficiently as possible.”
In the meantime, The University of Minnesota Law School and the OTC received a gift of royalty-bearing patents from 3M, based in St. Paul. The patents, with an estimated value of $760,500, are expected to generate revenue approaching $2 million over the next five years, which will be divided between the Law School and the OTC. At the law school, the newly established 3M Fund for Law, Science, and Technology will support various programs and initiatives in teaching and research. Alumni Raymond Eby (’98), a manager in 3M’s Corporate Development Group, and Mike Geise (’05), Office of Intellectual Property counsel, were instrumental in securing the gift. “We believe that great legal scholarship and high-quality legal education are critical to sound policy and best practices for the future,” Eby says. “Investing in legal excellence and technology is vital to ensure Minnesota’s role as a national leader in the years to come.”
Sources: Star Tribune and UM News