THE PROBLEM: Defense Health Agency (DHA) inventors approach the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (MRDC) Medical Technology Transfer (MTT) office with products at all stages of development. MTT saw a need to de-risk innovative technologies at all stages of development, particularly at the early prototyping and field-testing stage.
THE SOLUTION: MTT created Assistive Technology Transfer (AT2), a program that helps academic collaborators and industrial partners traverse the Valley of Death. AT2 helps systematically mature and de-risk biomedical technologies from concept to commercialization, expediting the process to make life-improving products available to military and civilian users. MTT developed the AT2 program to be responsive to the full lifecycle of activities required by inventors to commercialize their products.
As part of the AT2 process, royalty funds and MTT time are invested into identifying additional funding sources, and partners are introduced to potential sources of funding from angel and venture capital as well as economic development groups. AT2 also makes MTT part of the procurement process, something that differentiates MTT from academia and many other federal labs that do not buy back their own inventions.
THE IMPACT: The effect of AT2 is more life-improving products for warfighters and civilians. These products include vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices and medical software and algorithms. AT2 expedites the process so those products reach people faster. In just five years, MTT successfully used AT2 to help more than 20 technologies achieve commercial and/or military sales, generating licensing revenue of $26 million. This revenue has gone toward rewarding inventors and reinvesting into the AT2 program to move new inventions through development – creating a positive feedback loop of success.
The largest recent impact of AT2 has been through the prototype and test and evaluation stages of development. MTT has allocated some of its licensing revenue for the design and construction of prototypes through internal and external developers. Because money alone is insufficient for successful prototype development, MTT Licensing Officers facilitate multiple rounds of design and prototype production, often coordinating parties that provide incremental improvements along each step of the process. Bringing in clinical and regulatory expertise from across DHA into the process from the earliest stages is another aspect of AT2 that has proved useful in helping commercial partners develop technologies of use to the Warfighter. MTT also helped several companies obtain National Stock Numbers through the Defense Logistics Agency. Through DHA Vendor Day events and one-on-one conversations, partners can better prepare to quickly sell their products to help the Warfighter.
Although technology transfer success is usually measured by patents, licenses and royalties, AT2 focuses on the number and quality of products available to the Warfighter and civilian users; these products positively impact their well-being through better medical and health outcomes. The AT2 pipeline created by MRDC’s MTT provides a sustainable program that continues to produce new products for DoD and the public.