NIH will provide $3.5m to establish a human health-focused accelerator in five US states, with space for five biotech projects in its initial cohort.

US government agency National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $3.5m grant to establish a tech transfer accelerator for human health discoveries originating in Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware and New Hampshire, the Portland Press Herald has reported.
The accelerator, Driven Biomedical Technology Accelerator Hub, will aim to select five biotech projects from across its target states to begin the program in June 2019. Participants will receive access to resources, feedback and investors as they move closer to commercialisation.
The NIH grant is part of an up to $13m tranche announced by its Regional Technology Accelerator Hubs for Institutional Development Award program in September 2018 for four regional accelerators which bolster innovation in smaller states regarded by the agency as relatively under-resourced.
In Maine, Driven will be overseen by officials from the MDI Biological Laboratory and Maine Medical Center Research Institute, which will be represented by Todd Keiller, the director of its Office of Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property.
Agnieszka Carpenter, executive director of local industry body Bioscience Association of Maine, reportedly said the Maine initiative is better funded than most tech transfer schemes in the state.
She argued its primary goal should be to prevent local biotech talent from leaving Maine to pursue commercialisation opportunities in regional centres of innovation such as Cambridge, Massachusetts.