University scientists showcase research projects to business

The Venture Forum at Rutgers, in New Brunswick, showcased nearly 30 research projects under way at Rutgers, Princeton University, New Jersey Institute of Technology and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick said the goal is to “get research across the boundary from the laboratory, and into companies where it will make profits, generate employment and create wealth.”

“I think we in the universities, and our partners in business and government, can all do better to improve the business friendliness and the entrepreneurial spirit, and thus the economy, of New Jersey,” he added.

Larry Chaityn, an angel investor with the Keiretsu Forum, an investment group in New York, said “the deal flow has never been better.” Companies are continuing to downsize, “and a lot of really smart people who have been downsized are starting companies,” he said. Chaityn is interested in the life sciences and technology, and said he came to the forum “to see how far along the research is, and see what is ready to be spun out of the lab and commercialized.”

Edmond J. LaVoie, chair of the department of medicinal chemistry at the Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, is part of a research team that developed a cancer drug now being tested in human clinical trials. He was at the forum to present a new compound that has potential against certain prostate or breast cancers, developed in collaboration with scientists from UNDNJ and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

“We want to get this off the lab bench and into clinical trials, and the best way is to partner with a venture capital firm or with the pharmaceutical industry,” he said.

Judith A. Sheft, assistant vice president of technology development at NJIT, said the forum, the second such event to be hosted by Rutgers, “is a great opportunity for us as universities to collaborate together.”

“One of the challenges that New Jersey frequently faces is that people say we don’t have a great entrepreneurial community like they do in Silicon Valley, so a program like this where we get the universities to collaborate and to share technology and show it to investors helps to improve the whole entrepreneurial ecosystem for New Jersey.”

E-mail Beth Fitzgerald at bfitzgerald@njbiz.com