Penn’s William and Phyllis Mack Institute for Innovation Management helps scientists develop their business acumen and access partners to help bring their breakthroughs to market.
2 min. read
Many transformative technologies have their origins in university research, from lifesaving drugs and medical devices to advanced building materials. When these discoveries succeed in the marketplace, they not only improve lives but also become an important source of revenue for universities.
But the path from lab to market is rarely straightforward. Scientists face a range of challenges: traditional research grants typically don’t fund the costly “scale-up” phase of new inventions, while venture capitalists often hesitate to invest in untested, pre-commercial technologies. Many scientists also lack experience in business development or access to cross-sector partners (such as designers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs) needed to bring a breakthrough to market.
“We saw vast, untapped potential in dental medicine, where translating and commercializing academic discoveries still lags,” says Hyun (Michel) Koo, CiPD’s co-founder and director. “With mounting evidence linking oral and systemic health, we can turn CiPD’s innovations into real-world solutions that reduce the burden of oral diseases and improve overall health.”
(Image: Courtesy of William and Phyllis Mack Institute for Innovation Management)
Supporting Penn inventors in overcoming these barriers has long been part of the Mack Institute’s mission. In addition to sponsoring academic research on commercialization, the Institute runs the Y-Prize, where students developed commercial applications for scientists’ inventions, and the Penn–Wharton Commercialization Workshop, where scientists from the medical and engineering schools spend two days learning to translate their ideas into viable ventures.
The Mack Institute is piloting a new MBA course, Commercialization of Academic Science, which tasks students with developing go-to-market strategies for Penn inventions, as well as an AI-based app for assessing the commercialization potential of early-stage inventions.
Crucially, for the first time, the Mack Institute has begun working directly with research teams on multiyear projects that support inventors across every stage of the commercialization process. These projects foster direct partnerships that help researchers identify markets, test use cases, and build the connections needed to bring their technologies out of the lab and into the world.
The success of these student partnerships led to a new collaboration between CiPD and the Integrated Product Design (IPD) program, an interdisciplinary initiative in the School of Engineering, offered in collaboration with Design and focused on product and experience development. CiPD’s nano-robotic device served as the foundation for two projects in IPD 5520: Problem Framing, where student teams turn market research into tangible prototypes and visual concepts.
One of the teams focused on creating a prototype for in-clinic use by dentists while the other imagined how the device could be adapted for at-home use. The two teams explored different aspects of the technology. For example, the clinical team researched ways to make the device easier to integrate into existing dental workflows, moving toward an automated, “one-size-fits-all” model, whereas the at-home care team imagined how the technology could provide a safe and ergonomic experience for users with braces and those with disabilities.
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