Through an agreement outlined in two memorandums of understanding, UofL and InnovateLTC will work together to bring new products and services to aging populations worldwide. Researchers at UofL will help validate research findings and InnovateLTC will build the infrastructure required to bring innovations to the marketplace.
“Our partnership complements the university’s current commercialization strategy for the life-sciences sector, while expanding services for products, service models and technology that benefit both the quality of care and the quality of life as we age,” said InnovateLTC President and CEO John Reinhart. “We hope to not only encourage additional research, but also collaboration and alignment efforts to meet the ever changing consumer demands.”
Besides potentially commercializing aging-related research and discoveries, “The partnership will also allow our faculty a chance to collaborate with industries and consumers in real world situations and that can be a real game changer. We are very committed to bringing the benefits of research to the marketplace as quickly as possible,” said William Pierce, executive vice president for research and innovation at UofL.
InnovateLTC will partner with UofL’s Office of Technology Transfer to map out a strategy for obtaining trademarks, patent filings and licensing agreements.
Aging-related research at UofL is conducted in a variety of disciplines, Pierce noted.
“This would not be confined at all to geriatric medicine,” he said. “It would include disciplines such as engineering, social work, law and business.”
Reinhart said there could be vast amounts of untapped research that is ripe for commercialization but has gone unexamined because it does not fall into the traditional life-sciences categories of either pharmaceutical or medical device.