A team of biomedical engineers, venture capitalists and device businesspeople are launching a new incubator for med tech startups in Silicon Valley.
The Rosenman Institute, which will launch June 4, aims to fund and assist new innovators in the context of a difficult VC market; the 61 deals conducted in Q1 2014 were the fewest since 2004, and the $588 million in funding is well below the prerecession level of $1 billion.
The initiative is an offshoot of well-established biopharma incubator QB3@953. New companies accepted into the institute will have access to QB3's resources such as the QB3 Startup in a Box assistance program, according to Xconomy. It aims to provide device startups 2,000 square feet of lab bench space on QB3's San Francisco campus.
The Rosenman Institute will initially focus on commercializing the innovations of University of California, San Francisco, engineers. Indeed, UCSF punches hard in the med tech arena. Researchers there were recently awarded $26 million in government funding to study neural implants for Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.
Speakers at the launch event include the head of the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center in California, suggesting that the big players are buying into the effort to promote new companies. In fact, Xconomy reports that the institute's management includes several alumni of cardiovascular device company Heartport, which J&J ($JNJ) acquired in 2001.
Three of the most promising startups will receive $2,000 in seed money. The institute is named in honor of deceased med tech engineer Daniel Rosenman, who has more than 30 patents to his name.
- read the Xconomy article