2004

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center has received a grant of $500,000 from the state of Ohio to invest in four to six spin-off opportunities intended to move biomedical discoveries and inventions to the marketplace.

The grant comes from the Third Frontier Validation Fund and Seed Fund Initiative to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center TOMORROW Fund. This new fund, owned and operated by Cincinnati Children's, will invest in companies that have been built around technologies originally developed at Cincinnati Children's. The fund will provide early-stage investment capital to new, Cincinnati-based companies to help them develop to a point where they can obtain traditional venture capital funding.

The start-up companies will use the investment capital to further develop their technologies, hire employees and refine their commercialization strategies. Cincinnati Children's will use any returns on investment for future TOMORROW Fund investments.

"The primary goal of the TOMORROW Fund is to move technologies into the marketplace, where they can become medical products used to improve child health around the world," says James M. Anderson, president and CEO of Cincinnati Children's. "By building new companies in Cincinnati, the TOMORROW Fund will create new, high-paying jobs in the community and secure Cincinnati's place as a leading life sciences community."

Unveiled by Governor Taft in February 2002, the Third Frontier Project is a 10-year, $1.1 billion initiative to expand high-tech research capabilities, promote innovation, encourage company formation and create high-paying jobs in the state of Ohio. Is the Ohio's largest-ever, technology based economic development investment. So far, it has awarded more than $235 million to Ohio-based companies, universities and research organizations.

Cincinnati Children's is a 423-bed institution devoted to bringing the world the joy of healthier kids. Cincinnati Children's is dedicated to transforming the way health care is delivered by providing care that is timely, efficient, effective, family-centered, equitable and safe. It ranks third nationally among all pediatric centers in research grants from the National Institutes of Health. The Cincinnati Children's vision is to be the leader in improving child health.