November is National Entrepreneurship Month in the U.S., a time when the nation celebrates its entrepreneurs and the contributions they make to strengthening the American economy and their communities. This week (Nov. 14-20) is also Global Entrepreneurship Week, an international celebration of entrepreneurship.
Through robust educational programs and services in the areas of entrepreneurship, business commercialization and venture capital, Indiana University continues to enhance its culture of entrepreneurship and innovation. This, in turn, is allowing the university to harness the ideas and inventions of its students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends toward driving economic growth in Indiana, increasing the global competitiveness of the state and national economy, and addressing society’s most pressing challenges.
To help celebrate National Entrepreneurship Month, here, in no particular order, are some recent news items from around IU that reflect the success of the university’s efforts to expand its entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Driving life sciences innovation through venture investment. Through several major investments in promising medical and health care startups, IU Ventures, IU’s early-stage venture and angel investment arm, is helping to accelerate innovation in the life sciences in Indiana and the surrounding region. IU Ventures’ investment “portfolio” has recently expanded to include nine Indiana- or Midwestern-based life sciences companies with strong connections to the IU School of Medicine, the nation’s largest medical school. These companies, several of which are based on IU intellectual property licensed by IU’s Innovation and Commercialization Office, have made new and notable progress in developing promising treatments, tests and therapies for a wide range of diseases and disorders, including, among others, arterial hypertension, autism, cancer, diabetes, fragile X syndrome, human papillomavirus infection and hypoparathyroidism.
A multimillion-dollar milestone for MBX. The aforementioned companies include MBX Biosciences, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, headquartered in Carmel, Ind., which is designing therapies to treat rare endocrine diseases where there is no adequate treatment available. Yesterday (Nov. 14), MBX announced the closing of a $115 million Series B round of funding, which it will use, in part, to further develop its lead therapeutic product candidate, MBX 2109, for the treatment of hypoparathyroidism. MBX was founded by IU Bloomington Distinguished Professor Richard DiMarchi, who is an internationally recognized expert in peptide chemistry, biochemistry and pharmacology, IUPUI alumnus Kent Hawryluk and Tim Knickerbocker.
Creating VR experiences to aid substance abuse recovery. IU researchers are combining psychological principles with innovative virtual reality technology to create a new immersive therapy for people with substance use disorders. A team led by Brandon Oberlin, assistant professor of psychiatry at the IU School of Medicine, recently received over $4.9 million from the National Institutes of Health and launched an IU-affiliated startup company, RelateXR, to test and further develop the technology.
Going from IU idea to startup. Two IU faculty teams and one IU student were chosen as winners of the inaugural IU Idea to Startup Pitch Competition, hosted recently by IU’s Innovation and Commercialization Office at the Mill in Bloomington, Ind. The first-place prize went to a pair of IU scientists who have created a startup to prevent diseases caused by pathogenic Vibrio bacteria.
Taking innovation ‘outside the gate.’ IU Director of Economic Development Joe Carley recently appeared on The Commons podcast to discuss IU’s contributions to the creation of a regional hub of innovation and entrepreneurship outside the gates of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division. NSWC Crane is located at Naval Support Activity Crane, the third-largest naval installation in the world. In the podcast, hosted by Tom Osha, executive vice president of Wexford Science + Technology, Carley describes how IU is strengthening its longstanding educational and research partnership with Crane to establish a place where leading companies and entrepreneurs can interact with the Navy and work collaboratively to strengthen the impact of the military branch’s large presence in southern Indiana.
Bringing together B1G venture leaders. Earlier this month, IU Ventures brought together startup and new venture leaders from Big Ten and other institutions in Chicago. The summit was designed to promote new opportunities for partnership and collaboration and to help accelerate venture-related activity in the Midwest region and beyond.
Student app turning up the heat. HotDrop, a smartphone app that helps users discover and share new and underground music, which was founded by IU Kelley School of Business seniors Max Goldberg and Steven Segel, was recently accepted into a regional accelerator program launched, in part, by Techstars, one of the largest pre-seed investors in the world. HotDrop, the only music startup to be named to the 2022 Roux Institute Techstars Accelerator Class, received an investment last year through the Shoebox Fund, which supports companies to emerge from the Shoebox, the student startup incubator at the Shoemaker Innovation Center at IU’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering.
A No. 1 ranking for Kelley. The Kelley Direct Online MBA program at the IU Kelley School of Business is No. 1 in rankings from Poets & Quants, a leading news site about business education. Kelley Direct is the only business school program to land in the top five in every year since the ranking launched six years ago. Entrepreneurship topics continue to serve as an integral component of the program, which is designed to advance the entrepreneurial mindset of its students and allow them to apply new knowledge and business capabilities right away in their organizations.
Boosting Indiana’s economy through student innovation, entrepreneurship. Indiana is a confirmed hotspot for innovation. To maintain its momentum, the state must prepare more Hoosier students to become successful entrepreneurs, innovators and investors, writes IU Associate Vice President and IU Ventures CEO Tony Armstrong in a new opinion piece for the Indianapolis Business Journal.
Helping student entrepreneurs navigate legal issues. The IU Maurer School of Law’s Elmore Entrepreneurship Law Clinic will now have a closer connection to new IU-affiliated startup ventures and the legal needs of their founders. Professor Mark E. Need, director of the Elmore Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, has been appointed a Venture Legal Analyst-in-Residence with IU Ventures. The Maurer School will also serve as a new sponsor of the IU Ventures Fellows program, a unique 12-month immersive experience for an exclusive group of graduate students chosen from across the Bloomington campus.
Investing in musical innovation. Four students and one faculty member at IU’s renowned Jacobs School of Music are the recipients of the school’s inaugural Innovation Grants. At a time when the arts are expanding in new and unimagined directions, the awards are being used to support innovative ideas in performance or research for musicians, scholars and dancers with projects that are collaborative in nature and embedded in the Bloomington community.
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