Narrator: Coming up on Mayo Clinic Q&A...
Dr. Clark Otley: Mayo Clinic Business Development is really a
facilitator of the Mayo Clinic strategy. We are that business
arm that interacts with the external world. The nice thing
is that sounds a lot like corporate speak, but the nice
thing is, it's all focused on advancing health care for our
patients.
Narrator: With 7000 active inventors working in research,
clinical practice, and education, innovation at Mayo
Clinic comes from many directions. Doctors, scientists,
administrators, and other health care staff are all involved in
bringing forward new ideas and inventions.
Dr. Clark Otley: The people in our institution are so creative,
so amazing. I hope more and more people take advantage of it.
It's an incredible environment for innovation that I'm proud of
and appreciated every day for all the people working hard to
help our patients.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Welcome, everyone to Mayo Clinic Q&A. I'm
your host, Dr. Halena Gazelka. At Mayo Clinic, the Department
of Business Development is the front door to business. From
technology commercialization to strategic partnerships, the
ultimate goal of innovation at Mayo Clinic is to improve health
outcomes and benefit patients. Here to give us an inside look
at invention and innovation at Mayo Clinic is Dr. Clark Otley.
Dr. Otley is the medical director for the Department of
Business Development at Mayo Clinic. Welcome to the program,
Clark.
Dr. Clark Otley: Thank you, Halena. So excited to be talking
with you today.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Well, I am very enthusiastic to hear from
you as well. I think this is a little understood side of Mayo
Clinic, and I'm really excited to talk about it. Can you tell
us just who is Mayo Clinic's Department of Business
Development?
Dr. Clark Otley: Well, Mayo Clinic Business Development is
really a facilitator of the Mayo Clinic strategy. We are that
business arm that interacts with the external world. And we do it
through our two divisions. So, the first division is Mayo
Clinic Ventures. That's our technology development and
commercialization branch, which is responsible for taking all
the incredible inventions and intellectual property from our
inventors across the enterprise and trying to advance them and
get them to the bedside for our patient's benefit. The second
division is called Corporate Development. And that is focused
on large strategic partnerships and joint ventures and
acquisitions to advance Mayo Clinic strategy. That sounds a
lot like corporate speak, but the nice thing is it's all
focused on advancing health care for our patients.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Wow, that's impressive. I'm really curious,
how does Mayo Clinic Ventures find innovators? So, how do Mayo
Clinic innovators get in touch with you or link up with you to
bring disruptive health care technologies to market?
Dr. Clark Otley: You cannot stop our innovators. They're
everywhere. They pop up from all different places. So, we have
about 7000 active inventors among our employees across the
institution. And they're not just doctors. They are
scientists, they are administrators, they are allied
health staff, people with a creative idea are our inventors.
And of course, at Mayo Clinic Ventures, we work really closely
with our research shields, our practice shields, and our
education shield leaders, our department chairs, to try to get
that technology advanced. We've got a pretty good track record.
Inventing is really hard. To actually have something go from
that idea to the bedside, the average is about 10% success
rate out there in the industry. Our success rate is more like
30%, which is pretty, pretty wonderful.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: That's impressive, I would have
actually thought it might be less than 10%. From, you know,
you hear about how difficult it is to get a patent and produce
something. What is the vetting process for ideas? So you must,
you have 7000 people wanting to bring you ideas at least, and
maybe more? How do you vet them?
Dr. Clark Otley: We've set them as kind of objectively and
scientifically as we possibly can. So, every year, we have
about 700 invention ideas coming across our doorstep. And we have
to put the resources into the ones that are most promising.
And so, we have a process to evaluate them on a number of
criteria, including what's the likelihood of them coming to
fruition? What's the magnitude of that impact that they might
have on patient care? Whether they have patent protection, and
whether their market out there is saying, "Yeah, we want that."
And then for those inventions that seem the most promising,
what we do is we have a really robust ecosystem. We have
technology development managers, we have patent liaisons, we have
licensing managers, we even have some funding to support projects
that need a little bit of a nudge. And then we also use,
obviously, the Business Development capabilities to move
these things forward.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: It sounds like a one stop shop.
Dr. Clark Otley: It's a one stop shop, but we also are very
partnership oriented. So we work with external companies and
external entrepreneurs to kind of create teams around the
technologies to advance them. It's a lot of fun.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: So, are people from outside of Mayo
Clinic bringing you ideas as well, who just want to work with
you?
Dr. Clark Otley: Absolutely. About 50% of our technologies
come from Mayo Clinic inventors and 50% come from external
inventors, coming in looking for a scientist or a physician with
clinical insights. Because they're largely engineers on the
outside, they want somebody who would tell them, how will this
actually work in a patient care setting? So, it's inside and
outside.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: So, Clark, Mayo Clinic was recently
recognized as number one research institution for
technology transfer. What differentiates us at Mayo Clinic
that we would receive a ranking like that?
Dr. Clark Otley: We were pleased by that ranking. But honestly,
we really focus on getting things done in Business
Development. So, in terms of differentiation, I'd say it's a
lot of different things. And this did not happen overnight.
You know, we are a very successful technology
development group. But it's been a lot of hard work over decades,
honestly. If we didn't have top level support from Gianrico
Farrugia and Christina Zorn, our CEO and CAO, we wouldn't go
anywhere. We have an amazing relationship with Greg Gores,
our Dean of Research, and his partner, Heidi Dieter. Amy
Williams, our Dean of Practice, and Natalie Kane, her partner,
all very supportive. So, it takes a lot of people. Then, of
course, we have the resources I mentioned before, and really a
kind of win win set of policies that incentivizes our inventors
to really work hard, because a lot of this happens on nights
and weekends. So, it's discretionary effort, and kind
of that whole milieu has created a great opportunity for
invention at Mayo Clinic. But, the number one thing, is our
mission. That's the key door to success, Halena. Our mission
drives us to help our patients and that's the golden standard
for us.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: The needs of the patient come first.
Dr. Clark Otley: Exactly.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Say Clark, I'm curious, because you have
seen a lot of people bring inventions in and people who are
innovators. What does it take? If someone has the drive to
bring an idea to fruition, what makes someone a successful
inventor?
Dr. Clark Otley: Our inventors come from all over the
enterprise. They have lots of different characteristics. And
honestly, I admire them a ton because they're so driven by
helping our patients. When I asked our MCV team, what makes a
good inventor, what differentiates somebody who
tries hard but doesn't succeed from somebody who gets a product
into the market? It is a number of things. It is obviously, a
creative, inquisitive mind. Somebody who's brilliant.
Somebody who has lots of drive to help our patients. Dedication
to our patients and having that solution impact our patients is
really important. The honest truth Halena, is that most of
our inventors don't make a lot of money from their inventions.
They may have positive impact more than maybe a monetary
impact. Some do make money from the inventions. But really, the
biggest payback I think, is that sense of satisfaction. We call
it the anti-burnout pill. People are creative, they feel young,
they're stimulated, they're working with teams. It's a
really positive environment. And the ones that really do well are
ones that collaborate and work with great teams, lots of ideas,
they're open to changing their idea based on the feedback that
they're getting from the market. And then they have to persevere.
It's a long road from the idea to the actual product.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: There's nothing more satisfying than
helping someone else. We all know that. And so, imagine being
able to make an incredible impact on patient care. That
must feel amazing.
Dr. Clark Otley: Yeah, at scale. And that's what our inventors
seek, they seek to, in their day job, help patient by patient,
family by family. But then in their invention world, they want
to impact the world and they have that possibility.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Clark, earlier you mentioned how you
help to support the strategic priorities of Mayo Clinic. Can
you just give us an idea of what some of the key initiatives at
Mayo Clinic are that Business Development is supporting and
working toward?
Dr. Clark Otley: Sure, we absolutely are aligned with the
strategic plan of Mayo Clinic - Cure, Connect, and Transform,
and all of our Business Development activities go to
support those activities. So, in those three buckets, in the
cures bucket, people are trying to invent the next level of
cure. So, we work very heavily with our practice and research
colleagues and innovators. They're doing all sorts of
things. Trying to restore people's vision who are losing
their vision, diagnosing cancers through blood tests,
manipulating people's gastrointestinal tracts so that
they don't get diabetes, controlling seizures,
regenerating organs, all those kinds of scientific things are
unbelievable. In the Connect pillar, we're working with the
practice, obviously, the Center for Digital Health and Mayo
Clinic Platform and we're providing actual care for
patients in their homes in new and novel ways. Advanced by
technology, we're extending the care of patients who are
pregnant, to make it more efficient and more effective for
them in less disruptive ways. And then there's a new emerging
trend to provide Mayo Clinic quality cancer care outside the
walls of Mayo Clinic. Really, really exciting. And then
finally, in that transform pillar, Mayo Clinic Platform is
very heavily into that. And they're looking to develop
transformative data science-based platforms and
solutions that sit on that platform that are powered by the
greatest data science that make our care is more personalized,
more accurate, more predictive, and more effective. And then we
work with Mayo Clinic International, obviously, to get
all these kinds of things out there to the world. So, we're
heavily reliant on, and take all of our marching orders from, the
Mayo Clinic strategic plan.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Clark, your enthusiasm is contagious, and
it's exciting. Let's make it more tangible for some of our
listeners. Can you tell me a little bit about or describe
some of the innovations, for instance, that have come forward
because they've been shepherded by your department?
Dr. Clark Otley: Well, we'd have to have about 700 hours to go
through the list! We've got literally 1500 active
technologies ready for development and in ongoing
development. So, it's a big list. But let me highlight
three. The first one is Dr. Barham Abu Dayyeh's technology.
This is a catheter that goes endoscopically through people's
GI tract down into the small intestine. And then they do
what's called the electroporation, which is a
little bit of an electrical current that creates little
pores in the intestine. And what they're finding is by treating
the small intestine, which is a key mediator of our digestion
and our metabolism, you can actually reverse or prevent
people from getting diabetes. A major, major impact potential,
so that is super exciting. They're having great safety and
efficacy results with that technology. The second one would
be a viral technology. This is invented by Dr. Michael Berry.
It's a single-cycle adenovirus vaccine platform, so this can be
used for a lot of different things, including vaccinations
against infectious diseases, and also vaccinations for cancer.
And we are just finishing a phase one trial in Australia for
COVID-19 vaccination, where this single-cycle adenovirus vector
is creating great mucosal immunity, that's where the virus
enters, as well as systemic immunity. So, a big breakthrough
there. And then finally, in the AI space, I think people have
heard a little bit about our Mayo Clinic cardiologists.
Amazing, amazing scientists working with our partner from
the Platform called nference. And we formed with Business
Development, a company called Anumana. That company's main
goal is to develop and get out into market all these ECG or
electrocardiogram-based algorithms that can literally
not only diagnose existing illnesses but predict illnesses
that are going to happen in the future. It is amazing stuff,
Halena.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: That really is amazing. All of those are
wonderful examples. And the one that's most tangible to me is
the Apple Watch study, because I enrolled in that study and sent
my ECGs in and was happy to do it. Clark, this is all very
exciting. As we're wrapping up today, is there anything else
that you would like our listeners to know about
inventing at Mayo Clinic?
Dr. Clark Otley: Well, we have a big, big milestone we're about
to hit with Business Development. And that is,
probably sometime in December 2022, possibly in January 2023,
the billionth dollar of revenue from our invention activities is
going to come back to Mayo Clinic. Can you believe that?
That's an incredible measure of success. And the money is not
the primary thing. It's all the inventions that have generated
that that are the main emphasis. But we do get the money back
into Mayo Clinic. And obviously, as a not for profit, what we do
is we reinvest it into the clinical practice, research, and
education mission of Mayo Clinic. And part of that goes to
support the next generation of inventors, so that they can
create the next billion dollars' worth of inventions that help
our patients and then come back to support Mayo Clinic. So, I
would just emphasize, having been privileged to work with
Business Development for about nine years now, the people in
our institution are so creative, so amazing, and our business
development infrastructure and our invention ecosystem is so
powerful that I hope more and more people take advantage of
it. It's an incredible environment for innovation. And
I'm just proud of and appreciative every day for all
the people working hard to help our patients.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: How exciting and congratulations, Clark.
That's just amazing.
Dr. Clark Otley: Thanks Halena. I had nothing to do with it.
It's all on our inventors and our innovators who are
responsible for that.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Thank you so much for being here today,
Clark. This has been a great conversation.
Dr. Clark Otley: Thanks, Halena. I appreciate your time and being
able to share the message.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: And thanks to all of you too, for listening
in. We appreciate Dr. Clark Otley being here to talk to us
about inventing at Mayo Clinic. I hope that you learned
something. I know that I did. And we wish each of you a
wonderful day.
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