Figure 1.

Schematic diagram of the Colorado Biomedical Venture Development model employed by the University of Colorado. There are two parallel development thrusts represented by the upper and lower half of the diagram, Technical Development and Venture Development, respectively.

Technical Development is largely funded through federal research funding and done primarily within the University of Colorado through traditional academic research grants through the NIH and other federal agencies, SBIR/STTR subawards, POCg, and POCi funding from the Technology Transfer Office.

Venture Development generally occurs outside the University of Colorado, within startup companies, often with support from the entrepreneurial community, and is financial supported through State of Colorado matching fund grants for business development.

Preclinical stage development work often falls into both technical and venture development classifications and has been funded through essentially every funding program, depending upon the needs and sources of funding for a specific project or company. Rarely is venture capital or pharma partnering a major component of the preclinical funding model. The Colorado venture development process is focused on the advancement to clinical stage.

Clinical stage development work is almost exclusively from partnering and venture sources, given the large capital requirements.