Innovation, Commercialization & Entrepreneurship Resources

NUCATS can help you get your research to market by fostering biomedical innovation and entrepreneurial activity. We offer cross-campus collaborations, award pilot grants and other funding opportunities and help evaluate the commercial potential for research. NUCATS works with you and offers the following services that will help take your research from benchside to bedside.

Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO)

INVO partnered with NUCATS to create the Center for Translational Innovation (CTI), which represents the biomedical arm of the institute. INVO is a Northwestern office that focuses on identifying technologies with commercial potential, increasing the value of those technologies through intellectual property protection and helping in the development and movement toward commercialization through licensing, new ventures and partnering. The INVO team actively scouts for faculty investigations with commercialization potential and offers guidance on their potential commercial development. INVO also frequently hosts campus events and programs to help support the growing culture of commercialization and entrepreneurship at Northwestern.

INVO recently launched a new Inventor Portal that is now available to complete and submit Northwestern Disclosure Forms entirely online.

The Querrey InQbation Lab

INVO Commercialization Clinic

The commercialization clinic is a consulting service offered to all members of Northwestern who have questions about how to commercialize an idea.

INVO Startup Support

INVO sometimes offers teams access to free consultation on securing funds for their startups through Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer contracts or grants. There are also frequent seminars and clinics on the subject.

Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR)

NUCATS works with EIRs at INVO who are dedicated to the biomedical space and can advise and assist students and faculty as they launch startups or explore commercialization of research.

N.XT Funding

N.XT is a fund designed to foster and support Northwestern’s early stage innovations. N.XT’s purpose is to provide proof of concept resources for product validation, prototyping and market identification.

CBC-HITES

The Chicago Biomedical Consortium Hub for Innovative Technology and Entrepreneurship in the Sciences (CBC-HITES) provides Chicagoland academic innovators with the support needed to develop scientific and technical discoveries into biomedical applications.

CBC-HITES is a proof-of-concept biopharma and health technology center funded by the NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program. Hubs are designed to provide academic innovators with product development education, industry connections, project management, and funding necessary to develop biomedical applications.

CBC-HITES is a non-traditional funding and analytics resource for academic researchers from nine Chicagoland institutions built on the processes and infrastructure created by the Chicago Biomedical Consortium and is housed in Northwestern Medicine’s Comprehensive Transplant Center.

Pilot Grant Funding

NUCATS directly administers several pilot and seed grant funding programs.

Core Facilities

NUCATS investigators also have access to a wide variety of research cores that can help foster their entrepreneurship; browse the links below for more information:

• Northwestern Office for Research Core Facilities Administration
• Feinberg School of Medicine Research Cores
• NUcore Facilities