Partnerships & Commercialization
Increasing the likelihood of commercial and health impact.
Partnership and commercialization efforts at the CoLab at Dell Med apply expertise and seed funds to promising university innovations that address real market needs but require further support to develop and validate a commercialization strategy. Through a series of strategies and activities, the CoLab helps stakeholders translate their innovations out of an academic setting, secure investments and strategic partners, and capture early market traction — an effort atypical of universities.
Collaboration Management
The CoLab team streamlines the process of understanding goals, expectations and stakeholder needs within challenging academic-industry partnerships.
With the goal of assisting Dell Med faculty and staff in their collaborative efforts with industry partners, the CoLab identifies value for all stakeholders and distills critical insights, creates an actionable and achievable strategic plan for partnerships, and implements support and future collaborative planning.
Why engage with the CoLab?
For many partnerships, the hardest part of strategic planning is getting initiatives off the ground and executing change within organizations. The CoLab supports this critical effort by bringing together key stakeholders and elements to build a common language and by setting clear expectations for implementation along with success metrics that can be tracked.
The CoLab brings clinical, technology and business teams together to help foresee issues and opportunities, and provide increased value for both the industry partner and university.
By presenting a clear roadmap and strategy to leadership teams on all sides of a project early on in the process, the CoLab gauges levels of commitment, recruits executive team sponsors and increases the likelihood of receiving necessary approvals for partnership.
Many projects fail because of challenges in structural framework, especially since this is customized based on the needs and constraints of an organization. The CoLab helps identify the right mechanism — such as a joint venture, sponsored research or gift — and clarifies the type of partnership agreement that works for all sides.
During the implementation phase of a project, the CoLab provides project management services as needed to ensure streamlined operations.
Often, partners invest significant amounts of time building relationships only to discover that they have no future beyond a specific project. By addressing general organizational elements early and transparently, the CoLab’s roadmapping process improves the durability of relationships and lays the foundation for future projects.
The CoLab’s roadmaps help make projects more efficient and streamlined, improving return on investment both in terms of time and money.
Additionally, the CoLab can help prioritize projects based upon the value they generate for the university and industry partner. Should a roadmap identify insurmountable barriers that result in a no-go decision, industry partners can make an early decision to shelve a project and save a resources that are better applied toward different opportunities.
How It Works
Over four steps, the CoLab facilities stakeholder needs within academic-industry partnerships and ensures a project’s collaborative success.
- Step one: The CoLab details levels of support with respect to project details in an initial consultation.
- Step two: The CoLab hosts general discussion sessions with industry partners for alignment and planning followed by detailed strategy sessions to define clear goals and next steps.
- Step three: The CoLab develops and presents a project roadmap to stakeholders that identifies the most optimal pathway to value for all parties. The CoLab also helps faculty and staff define budgets and agreements that adequately cover a project’s scope.
- Step four: Once a project begins, the CoLab supports its partners in every step of implementation through continued project management and future collaboration strategies.
Get Involved
Innovators, corporate partners and investors can email the CoLab to further identify partnership and commercialization opportunities — from defining effective go-to-market strategies to promoting deliverables such as sponsored and collaborative research, new intellectual property, grant support and strategic investment.