Ideas That Heal

“There’s no cookie-cutter approach,” says Van Nurden, who adds that “cash is king for a start-up, and you can’t take all their cash. We might take more risk and accept a back-end royalty, to give the company a chance to succeed.”

When the right licensing partner isn’t available, Mayo may start a company itself, usually in partnership with other investors. In 2004, an obesity device it developed became the basis of a start-up company, St. Paul–based Enteromedics. Enteromedics went public in November, allowing Mayo to exit its investment. Mayo had been involved in 35 start-ups as of November, Van Nurden says. It has exited some and remains involved in others.

Mayo also collaborates with existing companies. In 2006, it began working with 3M to create a product that uses radio frequency identification to track medical specimens. Work on that project continues, Van Nurden says.

There are cases where Mayo makes the product without partners. Mayo Clinic Medical Devices, a four-year-old business unit within the Office of Intellectual Property, uses established independent manufacturers and their distribution channels. The first Mayo-branded device, an MRI coil for the wrist and elbow being made at IBM’s Rochester facility, hit the market in 2004.

Mayo now is working with the Rochester office of Texas-based Benchmark Electronics to produce magnetic resonance elastography equipment, which measures tissue stiffness with a high degree of specificity. An April release is planned. The Mayo-branded device will help in diagnosing liver fibrosis and cirrhosis, but could also be used on any soft tissue that shows evidence of disease via density changes.

The former standard of care involved a needle biopsy, which is “definitely not fun—you can see the pain in the patient’s face,” says Jim Potter, general manager of Mayo Clinic Medical Devices. “Now, in a 40-second scan, you can identify and stage the fibrosis.” Besides being painless, the new method allows doctors to follow the effects of medication more closely. “I think this will be the biggest thing to come out of the clinic since cortisone,” Potter says.

Mayo won’t reveal how much it makes from commercializing intellectual property, but Van Nurden says the program “generates positive net income.” The clinic shares royalties with the idea’s originator and his or her department, and plows any additional proceeds back into Mayo’s patient care, education, and research programs.

“The inventor wins, the department wins, and the Mayo wins,” Van Nurden says. “And the patients win, too.”