The Debrief: At SBU, an Innovative Take on Eco-Dev

As Stony Brook University’s first-ever chief innovation officer, Michael Kinch holds a uniquely influential position in one of the region’s biggest and busiest commercialization operations. Wielding an impressive résumé forged in the fires of academia and industry, he assumed his SBU leadership role (as well as a faculty position in the university’s Department of Pharmacological Sciences, and a seat on its University Council) last August, after successful turns as associate vice chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and founder of Yale University’s Center for Molecular Discovery, as well as numerous academic appointments at Johns Hopkins University, Indiana University and other top schools. The Duke University Medical Center-trained immunologist has also been a private-sector standout, as VP for research and development at Maryland-based biotech Functional Genetics, head of cancer biology and translational sciences at Maryland-based AstraZeneca subsidiary MedImmune and acting CEO of Michigan-based diagnostics ace Resonance Pharma – a comprehensive curriculum vitae that makes him the ideal person to manage the myriad business-incubation and technology-transfer efforts swirling through the former SBU Office of Economic Development, now rebranded as the multifaceted SBU Research and Innovation.

“Allure of the unknown”: My interest in immunology sprung from the fact that I lost both grandfathers and an uncle to cancer … this motivated a need to understand the disease and its causes. I volunteered to work in an immunology laboratory and began to appreciate the connection, resulting in a doctoral program in immunology at Duke, which began a career trajectory that has reflected a combination of luck and curiosity.

Tough choices: I gave up tenure at Purdue University to jump into a small biotechnology company called MedImmune. I started the Oncology Department and helped it grow. The company employed perhaps a hundred people when I joined and many thousands by the time I left.

Pandemic priority: I was recruited away from MedImmune by a company a mile down the road, Functional Genetics. Our CEO had just stepped down from leading DARPA and together we developed an approach for targeting pandemic diseases using an oncology-like approach. But investors were dismissive, quite confident that “mankind has conquered infectious diseases” and that pandemics were a thing of the past. This misperception would later come back to haunt us – though I fear we are already being lulled into renewed feelings of complacency amidst other growing threats.

A better way: I joined Yale to lead drug discovery and development. The Yale Center for Molecular Discovery was an agglomeration of other centers, which had gobbled up considerable resources but failed to generate value. Such outcomes are common … in many cases, a “center” consists merely of the founder and/or a few friends, who run the center as a largess. We took a different approach, with a goal of identifying and prioritizing projects of greatest value to the university as a whole.

Commercialization 101: We also sought to increase efficiency by engaging with partners and organizations such as contract research organizations. The key was to invest funding into ideas rather than merely feeding an infrastructure. Such seemingly obvious approaches were surprisingly seen as revolutionary.

In the BHAG: Because we were bringing together multiple teams, many of whom did not like one another, I deployed a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, which is meant to bring together a team to work toward common goals. One component of the BHAG was to create a drug-repurposing screening tool, with the idea that an approved medicine might have application to another use (e.g., aspirin was a pain reliever but later found to help with cardiovascular health).

Read all about it: It turns out there was no list of [U.S. Food and Drug Administration]-approved drugs anywhere, including at the FDA (the basis of my first book), so we created it. I spent weekends and evenings for more than a year compiling the list, asking who developed each drug, for what disease, how it worked, etc. This spreadsheet became the basis for analyzing trends in the pharmaceutical industry and how these have changed over time. To date, this simple idea has yielded insight into how we have made breakthroughs, why medicines are so expensive and many other topics – the subjects for more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and four books.

Drug data: At Washington University, we began to publish findings about trends in drug development and were making a bit of a splash with unexpected findings about the drugs, their sponsors and disease trends. We included information not just about approved drugs but all medicines tested in people – this magnified the project immensely, as we also collected a wider array of information (pricing and economics, targets and biochemical and pharmacological information).

Center of attention: Launched by Kinch more than a decade ago, Washington University’s Center for Drug Discovery continues to pave impressive inroads across the pharmaceuticals sector.

Center stage: It took the chancellor of WashU about a year to convince me to start the Center for Drug Discovery. Based on my experiences at Yale, my initial response was that these types of centers were a great way to spend a lot of money and have nothing to show for it. I also conveyed a sincere belief that if the goal was to make money (e.g., from royalties), the return on investment would probably be higher if the university were to play the lottery.

If you’re gonna do it…: This would be an open center with two simple goals – find the most promising projects to assist using objective criteria (not limited to friends or high-profile faculty) and underwrite studies by contractors that would advance those projects and create value in the process. Along with helping lead overall innovation and entrepreneurship activities at WashU, this focus on drugs proved to be quite successful and continues today.

Similar silos: In theory, the primary difference between private and public sector would seem to be that in industry, a shared goal is to increase the value of the company (and its stock), while in academia, each laboratory and professor can be thought of as a separate entrepreneurial venture – and successful faculty tend to create silos, both to keep their success inside and others out. In reality, both the private and public sectors suffer from silo-ization.

…and one for all: My sincere belief is that the wisdom of the crowd consistently identifies better solutions. Putting this into practice, I used to tell new hires that their job was to look out for the best interests of the organization, not themselves, their supervisors or me. This required them to appreciate that each person had both the ability and responsibility to add value and not make decisions in an effort to please or based upon illusory or inappropriate criteria.

Found in translation: I describe myself as a translator. The perception of value can differ quite a bit between academia and industry. Grants, papers and seminars often comprise the basis for academic tenure and promotion, yet these same attributes can compromise intellectual property and other measures valued by industry. Understanding what motivates and/or undermines individuals from either world is important … while the currencies and value for each sector can differ, it is indeed possible to find a balance and work in a way that is universally beneficial. This is at the heart of innovation.

New sheriffs in town: Our team at Stony Brook University, formerly known as Stony Brook University Economic Development, is being remodeled to focus on innovation. Our Office of Research and Innovation is led by a visionary recently recruited from the University of Louisville, Kevin Gardner, who joined just before I did. We are looking at everything from the perspective of newcomers and looking at future value generation for the university, the state and the region. This is a responsibility we have for our employer, neighbors and taxpayers.

Innovation inspiration: These changes are not merely window dressing. Rather, we intend to determine how SBU can serve as an engine to drive innovation. This means identifying the ideas, skills and resources we have that can help make real improvements. Our restructuring and mindset changes include working more closely with local and regional companies, other universities and government organizations … rather than merely looking inward, we want to reach out more and engage.

Come together: Value creation can mean monetary outcomes, but more importantly includes value creation from our faculty and students. Our work includes working with companies but also includes helping companies find and work with one another. We must innovate new ways to engage with other companies, universities and nonprofit organizations – and not merely engage, but make a meaningful and positive impact.

The next generation(s): As a state educational institution, we also have an obligation to help anticipate and prepare all types of trainees (including K-12 students and unemployed or under-employed adults) to create the workforce of the future. This works only if we can identify and understand current challenges and trends in technology and society and anticipate the skills and experiences that will be needed later.

Sky’s the limit: Stony Brook University has extraordinary untapped potential in crucial verticals: biotechnology, energy, information. This potential nicely reflects the exceptional opportunities present on Long Island. The world, state and region face a challenging period largely reflective of concerns about energy, information and health – but innovators and entrepreneurs view challenges as opportunities. The fact that SBU leadership shares this view (which is not always the case in either academia or industry) was a major attraction to come here. I believe we are living in a period of extraordinary change, and challenge, and opportunity.