Richmond Leader

Warner tours innovative research space at VCU School of Medicine

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner toured the Cottrell Surgical Innovation Suite at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine Monday, proudly noting how VCU and Richmond are on the cusp of becoming an innovation hub for the medical industry.

 

Warner, chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, says health sciences and medical research are becoming priorities for the federal government as matters of national security. One example is the supply chain disruptions during the pandemic impacting distribution of medical equipment and medicine not produced in the United States.

 

Finding solutions to these problems creates real opportunities, Warner says.

“We don't normally think of [biotech] from a national security standpoint, but I do think that has to be part of the lens,” Warner said. “The more we can do to make Virginia and Richmond specifically that hub, sign me up.”

 

This moment in time has sparked more support for VCU researchers and creative approaches to industry problems. The National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development fiscal year 2021 survey ranked VCU as No. 50 in the country for fiscal research expenditures, making it one of the top public research universities.

 

“As a top 50 public research university and the rate at which VCU's research enterprise is growing, we have a lot of big momentum going on right now,” said P. Srirama Rao, Ph.D., vice president for Research and Innovation at VCU.

 

VCU is leading the way in innovation and entrepreneurship in the region. Over the past decade, 60 startups have been created through VCU research and patents. Around 50% of those companies are still in business. Providing a framework to support researchers to find ways to build companies out of their work is one of the opportunities the university continues to explore and wants external partners to invest in.

 

“VCU has what it takes to make Richmond a health innovation and biotech hub, but we can’t do it alone,” Rao added. “We will need additional assistance from the state and federal agencies and others, to further advance these technologies to the next stages, so that these early startups can attract the necessary investments to move them further along towards the market place.”

Original source can be found here