About the Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation (IAMI)

Inspired by the opportunity to grow educational and entrepreneurial capacity, the Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation (IAMI) was established upon the belief that: ideas are translated to innovation to improve health. The Institute will focus on education and research that advances medical innovations. The result will ultimately accelerate the number and quality of new drugs, medical devices and drug–medical device combinations flowing from the investigators bench to the patient’s bedside. Guided by an advisory board of independent experts and staffed by experienced drug development and medical device leaders, the Institute is designed to create an unprecedented collaboration of resources and processes to support the following key objectives:

• Advance new, novel medical innovations for the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control of human and animal disease;
• Create a culture of multi-disciplinary, multi-organizational collaboration focused on advancing medical innovations from discovery to commercialization;
• Conduct clinical proof of concept trials on new, novel medical innovations; and
• Prepare graduate and postdoctoral students for careers in development and commercialization of medical innovations.

The Institute was created with a gift of $8.1 million from the Kauffman Foundation with a challenge match of $8 million from KU Endowment.

Background:

In 2005, the Kauffman Foundation provided a $300,000 seed grant allowing the University of Kansas Medical Center to establish a drug delivery and commercialization office that would support activities of the University of Kansas Cancer Center and integrate other research commercialization efforts across KU’s campuses. KU recruited three highly experienced scientific leaders to define and lead research commercialization activities. Led by Scott Weir, PharmD, PhD, this group has been instrumental in creating national attention for the drug delivery, discovery and development office at KU. However, despite the program’s success, it was clear that the program lacked a strong entrepreneurial component and student participation. From this, a new mission evolved to create an institute that would capitalize on the strengths of the drug discovery, development and delivery office, promote multi-disciplinary education through integration of the School of Engineering and the Bioengineering Research Center, and create additional student and faculty participation in entrepreneurial endeavors. The new model would allow more graduate students to participate in commercialization education, allow more post-docs to participate in the commercialization projects, and ultimately increase capacity and commercial outcomes.