CU Anschutz Awarded $4 Million NIH Grant for Innovative Projects

(May 2020) The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has been awarded $4 million over the next four years from the National Institutes of Health Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH) grant.

The grant will support efforts to turn biomedical discoveries into commercial products and improved care for patients. CU Anschutz was one of only five institutions to receive a grant under the REACH program in last fall’s round of funding. The grant connects CU Anschutz to a network of 34 academic institutions developing best practices to translate innovations into public benefit.

With the REACH hub designation, the program will also provide access to key federal agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in addition to relevant companies and organizations within the industry, and the angel and venture capital investment communities.

The goal of the Colorado Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub is to develop and expand programming that incorporates industry expertise, mentorship, skills development, and access to funding and relevant resources to guide inventors through proof-of-concept studies to early stages of product development.

Richard Duke, PhD, principal investigator on the Colorado REACH hub grant and associate professor of medicine, said, “Having been a biomedical researcher and academic entrepreneur at CU Anschutz for nearly 40 years, I am excited to witness the translation of the numerous and varied inventions of my faculty colleagues into products that impact patients’ lives, which the REACH grant funding will support.”