BioVentures Introduces New Leadership, Expanded Resources at Commercialization Retreat
| The first BioVentures Commercialization Retreat drew 65 attendees to a full-day of presentations packed with helpful information and inspirational stories.
The presenters included keynote speaker Kevin Sexton, M.D., president of BioVentures LLC, and UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, whose 2016 book, “Research to Revenue: A Practical Guide to University Start-Ups,” was available for free at the May 5 event.
Members of the BioVentures team at the May 5 Commercialization Retreat included:
Front, l-r: Kevin Sexton, Jeff Stinson, Sarah Goforth
Second row: Rob Griffin and Rebecca Todd
Third row: John Imig, Jay Gandy, Eric Peterson and Michael Geranen
Back: John Sherrill and Stefanie Kennon-McGill
Entrepreneurship at academic institutions such as UAMS includes unique challenges for translating discoveries into commercial products. Success requires teams with scientific, technical, legal, business and financial skills.
“There are all sorts of things that go into making one a successful entrepreneur, but it’s really developing that great team that is so critical and having the intelligence to know when the team needs to be changed — when you need to add people to that team,” said Patterson, who has decades of academic research/entrepreneurial experience.
Sexton, who took over leadership of BioVentures in 2022, introduced himself with stories about how he came to understand salesmanship at his father’s auto business and as a sales person at Circuit City. As he served a surgical fellowship at Vanderbilt University, he learned from a mentor that, “you can make your own path — it’s okay to try something different.”
He also noted for the researcher-dominated audience the striking similarities between entrepreneurship and research. “Entrepreneurship is research,” he said. Both address a problem, propose a solution and answer questions about relevance and why the researcher/entrepreneur is the right person to lead the project.
While research and entrepreneurship provide life-changing opportunities, they are also minefields of disappointment, Sexton warned.
“It doesn’t get any easier,” he said, noting that entrepreneurs, including himself, have to cope with a fair share of failure. “I’ve learned to separate the failure from my individual identity. A bad idea doesn’t make me a bad person.”
In a separate presentation, Sexton provided information about BioVentures resources to help researchers advance their innovations.
Patterson praised Sexton and his team for BioVentures’ efforts to make entrepreneurship easier for UAMS’ research community.
“As Bioventures continues to really expand and explode, creating opportunities and creating resources, I can think of no better time at UAMS for each of you to think about how you can turn the work that you do into something that will make the world a little bit or a lot better,” he said.
The retreat was hosted by Sarah Goforth, M.A., executive director of the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Arkansas Walton College of Business. She gave two presentations. One was about why entrepreneurship and commercialization matter to academic researchers and clinicians, and the other was about validating an idea for its commercial potential.
Other speakers and topics included:
- Eric Peterson, Ph.D., executive vice president of BioVentures, who presented, “Types of Intellectual Property and How to Protect Them — the Disclosure Process at UAMS.”
- Robert J. Griffin, Ph.D., professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Radiation Oncology and entrepreneur, who presented, “Non-dilutive Funding: Grants Available to Advance Your Innovations/Discoveries.”
- Jeff Stinson, director at HealthTech Arkansas and early-stage investor and fund manager who presented, “Private Equity Investments.”
- Rebecca Todd, grant writer at BioVentures, who presented, “State Resources for Prototype Development, R&D, tax credits, matching funding, etc.”
To learn more about BioVentures resources and services, visit BioVentures.tech.