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Centers of Innovation

North Carolina is richly endowed with campuses and corporations that are lauded for their innovations.

But the state has recognized that to grow nascent industry sectors of the NC economy, it must make innovation and commercialization a strategic priority. The Biotechnology Center has launched the Centers of Innovation (COIs) grant program to do exactly that.

The individual COI initiatives focus on accelerating the growth of targeted industry sectors by assisting their academic and industry partners to overcome their commercialization obstacles. It is only through successful commercialization that ideas and innovations move to marketable products.

Growth of these nascent industry sectors will lead to the creation of jobs and sustainable economic development statewide. The Biotechnology Center established the COI program with funding support from the General Assembly. The currently funded Centers are:

  • Drug Discovery Center of Innovation The DDCOI's mission is to provide pharmaceutical expertise and project management resources to accelerate the translation of discoveries into therapeutics.
  • IbilitiTM Links academic and industry leaders across the state who are merging medicine, biotech, engineering, nanotech, information technology and materials science into advanced medical products.  
  • Marine Biotechnology Center of Innovation Explores opportunities for companies to commercialize new food, fuel and health products off the state’s rich Atlantic coast.
  • Center of Innovation for Nanobiotechnology (COIN) Leverage and connect public and private sector research communities, entrepreneurs, product developers, business managers, investors and other funding sources involved in nanobiotechnology in North Carolina and beyond.

Staff at  the Biotechnology Center work with university researchers,  technology transfer officers, industrial partners, nonprofit stakeholders as well as regional and statewide policymakers to shepherd the COIs into existence.

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