Report highlights impact of UB’s business partnerships

More than 1,260 jobs. Nearly $122 million spent on employee pay and company purchases.

That’s the direct economic impact that companies working with the Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships (BEP) team at UB had on Western New York in the 2016-17 fiscal year, according to BEP’s first annual impact study.

The report highlights how BEP drives economic development.

The unit connects business partners with UB scientists, graduates and student interns, and provides companies with access to equipment and facilities. BEP serves as a bridge to commercialize new technologies, advance existing technologies and create pathways to experiential learning and jobs for UB students.

Faculty benefit tremendously from these relationships, too: Through various programs, BEP funds the work of UB investigators who partner with area firms on research and development (R&D) projects. UB spinoffs launched by professors are among businesses that have taken advantage of this support.

“Most public universities are now proactively integrating economic development into their mission and play a primary role as a driver of development activities,” says Christina Orsi, associate vice president for economic development. “As companies recognize the rising cost of internal R&D, there is an increased interest in access to university research and collaboration. Institutions of higher learning share in the responsibility for economic development and must remain stewards in the communities and regions they serve.”

By working with hundreds of companies, BEP supports economic activity and employment across Western New York, New York State and beyond. BEP — part of the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development — operates the following incubators, centers and programs at UB, with success measured by the impact on individual companies and the economy as a whole:

• UB Technology Incubator at Baird Research Park.
• UB Biosciences Incubator at the Clinical and Translational Research Center.
• Western New York Incubator Network.
• Buffalo Institute for Genomics and Data Analytics.
• UB Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences (CBLS).
• UB Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics (CMI).
• Center for Advanced Technology in Big Data and Health Sciences (UB CAT).
• START-UP NY program at UB.

UB’s BEP team also collaborates closely with entities such as the UB Center for Computational Research, helping to connect businesses with useful resources at the university.

BEP works with companies of all sizes, and the team has had a significant impact on the growth of small and mid-sized companies in Western New York. These range from new startups to firms like Sentient Science, which employs more than 50 people and has drawn attention to the region’s sophisticated capabilities with its technology — a multi-physics computer program that predicts when rotating machines will fail. The system, installed on 20,000 wind turbines, could reach 100,000 turbines in the near future.

“We would not be able to commercialize our technology, especially at the rate and effectiveness we have, without the University at Buffalo’s Center for Computational Research,” says Ward Thomas, president and CEO of Sentient Science, which has taken advantage of a number of UB programs and services with assistance from BEP.

“We’ve really benefited, and it has been one super-supportive journey with UB,” adds UB professor Glenna Bett, whose spinoff, Cytocybernetics, has also worked with BEP.

The firm — co-founded by Bett, vice chair for research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, and Randall Rasmusson, professor of physiology and biophysics in the Jacobs School — markets a device that integrates electronics with heart muscle cells to test how new drugs affect the heart’s electrical activity.

UB helped Cytocybernetics secure critical, early-stage R&D funding through the UB CAT and other programs. The company is part of the START-UP NY program, which allows new and expanding businesses to operate for 10 years without paying various state taxes. In addition, Bett received entrepreneurial training through the Pre-Seed Workshop, a business bootcamp coordinated by CBLS.

Founded in 2013, Cytocybernetics has 12 employees and is poised for further growth. The spinoff is an example of how BEP is fueling the expansion of Western New York’s innovation economy.

“I am very proud to say our first employee was a Buffalo native who had gone to Silicon Valley, and he was looking to come back to the region,” Bett says. “We’ve always felt good about that.”