The Neutrino Donut recently participated in an NIH grant review program. Our focus was on the commercialization process for Phase 2 applicants. A few pointers for our readers.

1. Engage a product manager and market development expert in your grant process. You need the expertise of people who understand how to take a project into the marketplace.
2. Understand the budget process of your clients. A $150K software project will be part of a long approval process. A $5K software project can be sold many times within an organization under the department discretionary fund.
3. Understand the buying process of your clients. A single person often may not have full budget / technical / process authority to purchase an item.
4. Labs – If you technology goes into a lab, where does it fit in the process? If you are attempting to do a single blood test, you need to justify why a full blood panel does not cover your interests.
5. You need team members in the grant who will be part of the marketing / product development process.
6. Letters of support should not be from your consultants.

The science team gets to vote on the grants. So does the commercialization team on the Phase 2 grants. The goal of the program is to create a business and make the technology sustaining. Spend the time up front to manage this process and demonstrate how the business will operate in the future.