Researchers partner with business for solutions to global needs

July 13, 2010 By Shelley Widhalm

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Researchers at Colorado State University, with the help of the city of Fort Collins, are avoiding the ivory tower.

Instead of writing white papers that get filed away, researchers in a variety of academic fields are moving their ideas from the campus to the marketplace by way of a supercluster — an alliance of researchers and business experts who identify a global need and work with industry partners to develop and market the solution.

What this looks like in a small metropolitan city like Fort Collins was the topic of the first Northern Colorado Innovation Summit Monday at CSU’s Lory Student Center.

The 4 1/2-hour summit, hosted by CSU, the city of Fort Collins and Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., highlighted Northern Colorado entrepreneurs and innovative businesses.

“The wealth of research-based businesses here is astounding,” Markey said in her welcome to more than 100 people.

Markey outlined three components of an innovation economy, an economy that focuses on business development (such as through superclusters) and job creation, while encouraging entrepreneurialism.

The components include investing in people and ideas, along with helping companies compete and win in a global economy, Markey said.

Markey introduced Mike Freeman, finance director for the city of Fort Collins, and Tim Reeser, chief operating officer of Cenergy at CSU, who gave an overview of the innovation economy.

In Northern Colorado, the innovation economy includes several superclusters that bring together CSU with industry partners.

For instance, the Northern Colorado Bioscience Cluster, which has 45 companies in growth mode, is composed of companies that research, produce and distribute medical devices and instruments, pharmaceuticals and biofuels.

The aim of the Northern Colorado Clean Energy Cluster is to develop renewable energy, such as solar or wind, and fuel sources.

By 2015, the cluster hopes to incubate three to five businesses a year.

The clusters help bring about job growth, Freeman said.

“If there weren’t any new startups, there wouldn’t be any job growth in the U.S. economy,” he said.

To date, 23 companies have spun off from research and technology developed at CSU and remained in business, Reeser said. Another 14 potential startups are in the exploratory stage, he said.

“Ultimately, we’re trying to move raw technology to commercialism,” Reeser said.

Two panels covered the bioscience and clean technology industries.

The three bioscience panelists described their process of bringing their research to market in the areas of infectious disease and pharmaceuticals.

Bioscience companies with new product ideas can expect to lose money in the first decade of operation, because of the time it takes to bring the product to market, said Scott Deeter, chief executive officer for Ventria Bioscience in Fort Collins.

“It’s different than technology, because the cycle time is so long,” Deeter said.

The three clean-energy panelists discussed the challenges to developing alternative energy businesses in Northern Colorado.

One such challenge is getting local funding for startups, because the region lacks the mass of investors Denver and other metropolitan areas have, said Freeman.

“Most of our investment dollars in Northern Colorado are in real estate,” he said.

Panelists suggested doing more marketing about the clean-energy sector to develop investor interest.

“The best thing we can do is create sufficient sunshine on what we do,” said Frank Ramirez, chief executive officer of Ice Energy, a Windsor-based developer of energy storage and smart-grid technology. ‘We need to be noisy about what we’re doing.”