Building a cross industry/university system translational innovation ecosystem for convergent health care innovation: Early outcomes of a needs-driven biodesign program

Abstract

Translating unmet clinical needs into commercially viable innovations is often constrained by disciplinary silos and fragmented academic infrastructure. Distributed academic medical systems need structured models that integrate clinical insight, engineering design, and commercialization expertise to accelerate translation. We developed Texas Biodesign to build innovation capacity through needs-driven, interdisciplinary training, bringing together stakeholders from MD Anderson Cancer Center, multiple schools across The University of Texas at Austin, and NASA collaborators to design the curriculum, mentorship structure, and team selection process. The initiative linked MD Anderson clinicians with engineers, scientists, and business trainees across UT Austin. Over eight weeks, three interdisciplinary teams received weekly didactics and mentorship on identifying unmet clinical needs, constructing structured needs statements, applying systemic filters, and advancing high-potential concepts, emphasizing reproducible skill development over immediate intellectual property generation. Despite a fully virtual format, teams generated over 200 needs statements, prioritized one lead concept per team, and two teams continued post-program development. Outcomes included two start-up companies, multiple patent filings, and over ＄200,000 in non-dilutive funding. Unlike traditional single-institution Biodesign models, this initiative demonstrates the feasibility of a geographically distributed, cross-university, fully virtual implementation model, and identifies operational considerations for scaling needs-driven innovation training across complex academic ecosystems.