How did Philadelphia earn the nickname “Cellicon Valley”?
Along with a lot of groundbreaking research and world’s-first discoveries in cell and gene therapies, the Penn Center for Innovation has played a key role in facilitating the development of faculty ideas and discoveries into new products and businesses, including commercially available therapies. The center helps researchers turn their ideas and discoveries into opportunities that can be licensed to existing businesses for commercial development, or to launch startup companies spun out from Penn.
In certain cases, the Penn Medicine Co-Investment Program has provided crucial financial support in bringing these new companies to life. Since the program was established in 2018 through an investment from the health system, it has supported 14 spinout companies to commercialize technologies emerging from Penn Medicine labs.
Resources like the Penn Medicine Co-Investment Program and the Penn Center for Innovation are key connectors in a virtuous cycle of research discovery, helping to bring ideas from academic labs that often rely on federal and philanthropic funding, into a phase of larger-scale clinical testing and commercial development.
“NIH funding, academic research, philanthropic funding, and corporate funding working together really does change lives,” said Carter Caldwell, the co-investment program’s director.