This August a project will launch for matchmaking undiscovered intellectual property (IP) in oncology with talented management teams. The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) will start accepting applications for the initiative, known as the 'Freedom from Cancer Startup Challenge' (FCSC), designed to spur biotech startup creation around commercially viable cancer-related IP. To finance the effort, CAI has obtained $1.2 million from the Washington, DC–based Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF), together with additional funds from London-based MedImmune/AstraZeneca.

CAI will first source inventions and IP from participating universities, research institutes and federal laboratories, including the US National Institutes of Health. These inventions will be shortlisted by CAI's team, with a final review conducted by MedImmune and other industry experts. Approximately 50–150 total technologies will be offered for the challenge.

Management teams will then be invited to compete for one of the selected FCSC inventions. CAI intends to do this by crowdsourcing entrepreneurial talent from universities and industry, inviting teams to apply via its website (http://www.freedomfromcancerchallenge.org/). Writing to Nature Biotechnology, a CAI spokesperson claims that enough teams will apply that up to 10–15 teams will compete per invention to win the right to form a startup around the IP.

With ∼175,000 patents granted in the field of cancer since 2005, and >$75 billion in US public and private funding each year, CAI argues that too few inventions are being commercialized owing to discoverability issues and a lack of due diligence and competent operating teams. According to institute, The overall goal is to “create a sustainable engine to establish 100 startups for developing treatments in the field of cancer.” Mike Stebbins, LJAF's vice president of science and technology, adds, “by making the intellectual property [IP] available along with the licensing agreements, we believe there is a hungry community of private investors ready to capitalize on the opportunity.” The question is whether private funding will be found to seed and sustain 100 companies. In its Breast Cancer Startup Challenge, the CAI successfully seeded nine companies. The start date for FCSC is “tentatively set” for August 1 and will conclude by August 31, 2018.