Office of Entrepreneurship

The mission of the Office of Entrepreneurship in the Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCaTS) at Mayo Clinic is to stimulate a culture of life science innovation and entrepreneurship through education. The office provides Mayo Clinic staff members and students with entrepreneurship education, networking opportunities and application support for their innovations.

The need for entrepreneurship education

The process of translating biomedical discoveries to patient care is often long, inefficient and risky. A focus on commercialization of discoveries can add efficiency to the process and make innovations more quickly available to patients, providers and health systems.

Health care providers and biomedical researchers often receive little training in entrepreneurship and the steps necessary to transform an idea into a product ready for commercialization. This gap in entrepreneurship knowledge presents a significant barrier to translation.

Too often, busy medical professionals are so focused on bench or bedside responsibilities that the prospect of harnessing the commercial potential of their discoveries is not at the forefront of their thinking. The CCaTS Office of Entrepreneurship provides clinical innovators at Mayo Clinic with the knowledge and resources they need.

Collaboration in support of innovation

Mayo Clinic takes a multifaceted approach to innovation. It benefits from a thriving technology transfer infrastructure in the Office of Business Development. The Office of Translation to Practice enables bidirectional interactions between strategic collaborators and Mayo researchers and oversees projects to define and optimize clinical utility. The Office of Entrepreneurship complements the activities of these two offices by educating Mayo Clinic staff and students on the principles of commercialization and entrepreneurship.

The Office of Entrepreneurship partners with CCaTS education programs, the Office of Business Development, the Office of Translation to Practice and other entities across Mayo Clinic to connect entrepreneurship initiatives in a common curriculum. Current education offerings include a five-credit graduate-level concentration focused on innovation and clinical entrepreneurship.