SHARPhub North Dakota

NIH Proof-of-Concept Center (POCC)

The Sustainable Heartland Accelerator Regional Partnership (SHARP) Hub is a regional biomedical technology transfer accelerator program, funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH), designed to increase the number of biomedical technologies translated and new startups formed in the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Through SHARPhub, entrepreneurs can access training and mentoring, as well as connections with investors and partners, to assist them in spinning out their life science discoveries into startup companies, helping innovators accelerate the transfer of biomedical technology to the commercial market. A significant part of SHARPhub’s focus is helping startups develop competitive SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) and STTR grant applications to provide seed capital to fund R&D. Led by BBC Entrepreneurial Training and Consulting LLC (BBCetc), SHARPhub implements a three-pronged approach to include a mentoring program, an entrepreneurial training curriculum, and networking and outreach tools. These resources are available to universities or regional consortia to develop technology commercialization capacity in the health sciences. In North Dakota, the University of North Dakota (UND) School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) is the official SHARPhub organization, as well as an official partner for the NIH Great Plains IDeA-CTR, designed to build an effective system and infrastructure that will transform and advance clinical and translational research (CTR) across Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

https://med.und.edu/research/research-partnerships.html