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The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development is a $250 million national initiative to accelerate the development of medical breakthroughs by physician-scientists into medicines. It is a model that aligns, through mission and structure, non-profit and for-profit resources into a new system for drug development. This model allows therapies to cross the “valley of death ” between discovery and early clinical-stage research, a point of high-risk for drug development.

Non-Profit Institute
University Hospitals Harrington Discovery Institute (HDI)

The institute was established through a $50 million gift from the Harrington family and an additional $100 million in support from University Hospitals. The Institute is led by Dr. Jonathan Stamler, a cardiologist and pulmonologist who had 16 years of research experience at Duke University. Dr. Stamler has co-founded five companies and is the author of more than 125 patents, and has been recognized by the Kauffman Foundation for being among the “Top Innovators in America.”

Initiatives to advance the goals of the program include:


 * The Harrington Scholar-Innovator Program: An annual competitive grant program, which selects the 10 most promising physician-scientist discoveries and provides funding and  guidance to accelerate the development of those discoveries.  In its first year, the program attracted 130 applications from 53 institutions .  Those selected in 2012 included researchers from Duke, Johns Hopkins, Washington University in St. Louis, and other schools, as follows :
 * Marc Diamond, MD, Washington University in St. Louis
 * Roger Greenberg, MD/PhD, University of Pennsylvania
 * Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, Stanford University
 * Richard Kitsis, MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
 * Wolfgang Liedtke, MD/PhD, Duke University
 * Sanford Markowitz, MD/PhD, Case Western Reserve University
 * Scott Oakes, MD, University of California, San Francisco
 * Jonathan Powell, MD/PhD, Johns Hopkins University
 * Larry Schlesinger, MD, Ohio State University
 * Robert Wilson, MD/PhD, University of Pennsylvania


 * This program, along with the Innovation Support Center, provides up to $200,000 per scholar and guidance from the Innovation Support Center. The projects are eligible for an additional $500,000 in follow-on grant funding from the Institute if they are advancing successfully.


 * The Harrington Distinguished Scholars Program: A program that recruits experienced physician-scientists to become faculty and staff at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, securing the campus’s reputation as a hub for innovation. In spring 2012, Goutham Narla, former faculty member at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, was recruited as the first Distinguished Scholar to University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) .  He currently works as a medical geneticist with research focus on high-risk breast cancer patients, and also teaches at CWRU’s medical school.


 * Harrington-Foundation Scholar Awards: This program will provide matching grants to foundations already supporting disease-speciﬁc research by creating of a new award for physician-scientist, who will beneﬁt from expert guidance through the Innovation Support Center.

National Innovation Support Center (ISC)

The National Innovation Support Center provides mentorship, resource connections, and business support to assist physician-scientists. The Center, which will be guided by experienced industry and investment professionals and led by Perry Molinoff, MD, will develop relationships between inventors and industry experts and entrepreneurs to prepare their discoveries for advancement to commercialization. An annual symposium brings together the Scholar-Innovators and members of the Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board to discuss their discoveries and the advancement of those projects.

For-Profit Company
BioMotiv is a mission-driven, for-profit accelerator company, designed to accelerate breakthrough discoveries into medicines by advancing a portfolio of novel therapeutics in all disease areas and types of therapeutics — small molecules, antibodies, proteins, cell therapies, and nucleotides – from the discovery to pre-clinical stages of development and will also consider drug repurposing opportunities. Opportunities are sourced primarily through relationships with research institutions, disease foundations, and governments.

The company attracted Baiju R. Shah, former CEO of BioEnterprise (a non-profit aimed at boosting Cleveland’s healthcare economy), to lead its efforts ,. Prior to founding BioEnterprise, Baiju Shah worked at McKinsey & Company. David C. U’Prichard, PhD is its Chief Scientific Officer; he has served on a number of biotechnology boards, as a venture partner at several funds, and was Chairman of Research and Development at SmithKline Beecham. BioMotiv’s advisory board includes David U’Prichard, PhD, Christine Debouck, PhD, Frank Douglas, MD, PhD, Diane Jorkasky, MD, Perry Molinoff, MD, Michael Nochomovitz, MD, Lawrence Olanoff, MD, PhD, Srini Rao, MD, PhD, Jonathan Stamler, MD, and Harlan Weisman, MD.

The company has raised over $21 million to date, with a goal of raising $100 million in total.

In response to recent decline in the number of traditional biotechnology venture capital firms, BioMotiv utilizes an asset-centric model to in-license, fund, and manage technologies in-house. The business model aligns a capable and connected management team and advisors for the selection, development, funding, active management, and advancement of a portfolio of therapeutic products. Projects will be advanced by the management team through clinical proof-of-concept and then out-licensed via strategic alliances with pharmaceutical companies.