Members on the Move

OrthoKnow | July, 2006

Recently, OrthoKnow had the opportunity to speak with Richard (Dick) Tarr, President and Executive Director of the InMotion Musculoskeletal Institute in Memphis, Tennessee, and Member of the Institute for Orthopaedics™. InMotion is an independent research lab in its formative stage, focused on musculoskeletal diseases and injuries.

Prior to joining InMotion, Tarr retired from DePuy after 20 years of continuous service. While at DePuy, Tarr was Vice President of Worldwide Research and Engineering Technologies, and was responsible for DePuy’s global research initiatives.

Tarr’s experience also includes work in academia, serving as an instructor in research orthopaedics and Director of the Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, a Research Associate at the University of Miami School of Medicine and a Design Engineer with Northwestern University’s Rehabilitation Engineering Program.

Dick is a Biomedical Engineering graduate of Northwestern University and holds a Master of Science degree in Bioengineering from Texas A&M University. Tarr also completed a tour of duty while in the U.S. Army, where he obtained his radiologic technologist training.

He holds five patents and frequently speaks on orthopaedic research topics.

OrthoKnow (OK): Last year, you retired from a successful industry career. What was your primary motivation to move to the nonprofit realm?

Dick Tarr (DT):I’d had a very successful career in orthopaedics; 12 years in academic research, and then 20 years at DePuy. DePuy changed considerably over those years – it was a medium-sized business when I got there with a new management team. We built the business up to be number one in the industry – that was exciting. We had great leadership there, and I was privileged to work for those people. But things changed dramatically after the business was sold and we became a part of Johnson & Johnson, and although we were still doing very well, I felt it was time to move on. I was at the right age and I decided to retire.

One of my goals was to help educate the general public about orthopaedics – I think it is probably the most understated story in medicine – so that was my plan. Then an opportunity popped up to come down to Memphis and help start a nonprofit independent research organization. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

OK: What were your concerns about that move?

DT: I knew I could put together a laboratory that could do good work and become a leader in the area of musculoskeletal research. The biggest concern I had was raising money. I’m comfortable telling the story – it’s the “ask” that was a concern.

The first few months here were “meet and greet” time, making sure the people of the community knew who I was and knew my vision for this project. Then it was time to start raising money. We recently learned that two of our major grant requests have been funded, allowing us to build interim facilities and recruit key scientists.

These grants provide funds to bring in initial equipment to build two laboratories that will get us off the ground, and to recruit some key clinician-scientists and a Director of Biomechanics. The clinician scientists will be hired in collaboration with Campbell Clinic and the Director of Biomechanics will have a dual appointment with InMotion and the University of Memphis Department of Biomedical Engineering.

They will do their basic research in InMotion laboratories, with time shared at other facilities. Ultimately, we will move into a new building in the UT-Baptist Research Park in 2009. As we grow, we want our funding to be balanced between contract research, NIH and government funding and private foundation support. As we recruit people, we want to make sure they have the reputation that can bring us to a level of credibility to support pursuit of some major grants.

OK: What exactly is InMotion?

DT: InMotion was an idea that came from the city leaders of Memphis and the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, who commissioned studies to determine the best opportunities for economic growth. One idea that kept coming up was biotechnology.

Although we presently have a low level of orthopaedic research in Memphis, there is a very strong element of orthopaedics in town; Campbell Clinic and Semmes-Murphey Spine and Neurologic Institute are both very well known, for instance. We also have two large universities, major hospitals including one of the largest trauma centers in the country and three orthopaedic companies. It seemed we should focus on the musculoskeletal research arena to help drive this bioscience initiative.

InMotion is an independent, not-for-profit laboratory that accelerates musculoskeletal discoveries to “Translate ideas into treatment.” The Institute’s mission is to reduce disability and to improve mobility for the musculoskeletal patient through translational research from bench top to bedside.

OK: What have you accomplished so far?

DT: We have registered as a not-for-profit corporation in the state of Tennessee and have received our 501(c)(3) (charitable foundation) exemption from the IRS. We elected a Board of Directors and have also formed a Scientific Advisory Committee to help guide our direction, our hiring of key personnel and the science behind this Institute.

I made phone calls to ten individuals that I knew from the clinical, engineering / biomaterials and regenerative medicine sides of the business, and all ten of them accepted positions on this Scientific Advisory Committee. We’re in the midst of recruiting an Executive Advisory Committee of key local business leaders to provide a further base of community support.

We have also initiated—because it was the easiest thing to do without space, equipment or people—a quarterly educational series. One of our main goals is to encourage collaboration and the discussion of various topics in musculoskeletal research. Key speakers from across the U.S. with expertise both in basic and clinical science have shown how science actually meets patient demands and leads to new treatments.

Steven Badylak, M.D., Ph.D., D.V.M., from the University of Pittsburgh, Bill Bugbee, M.D., from the University of California at San Diego and the 2005 Kappa Delta Award winner, and Edward Schwartz, Ph.D., from the University of Rochester have all been lecturers in this series.

We also received two major foundation grants totaling $3.6 million over three years to start the real work of InMotion.

OK: Memphis is not really known in the world of musculoskeletal research. How do you plan to change that impression?

DT: We have to build credibility by having world class scientists doing work that makes people think of us when they hear “musculoskeletal research.”

We also have real opportunity with the Campbell Clinic, known for founding the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and also as the publisher of Campbell’s Operative Orthopaedics, the “bible” for orthopaedic surgery. With In-Motion as a collaborator, we will bring expanded research capabilities to their already strong residency program.

In addition, with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and the University of Memphis as collaborators, we can truly become a center for translational medicine and translational orthopaedic research. We intend to carry ideas forward to the point where they can be translated into intellectual property and can be commercialized.

OK: Are you part of a university?

DT: No, we are an independent, private, not-for-profit corporation, but we will collaborate with many key researchers, with adjunct appointments with the local universities and clinics.

OK: How will you work with industry?

DT: Much of our early work has been supported by grants that we’ve received both from Smith & Nephew and from Medtronic Sofamor Danek. Through my connections to Warsaw, we will draw in contract research with the companies there.

We’ve also had some initial work with one of our collaborators, The Campbell Foundation, which conducts research for DePuy, Stryker and Wright. Looking ahead, we hope to bring a lot of contract work through our laboratories to support industry’s product development efforts.

OK: How will you treat discoveries and inventions, given that you may have multiple collaborators?

DT: Obviously, every project or program that we do will have contracts and agreements prepared in advance that will specify the ownership of intellectual property (IP) and rights to licensing or royalties down the road. We’re in the process of writing contracts with our collaborators to cover ownership of IP. We hope that InMotion will receive IP through assignment from the inventors, and then we will be the catalyst for developing it to patents, continually moving forward to commercialization.

Although we want to take the lead and protect the IP, we would share potential royalty monies or licensing fees with the inventors and with our collaborators.

The exact percentage may vary depending on the number of people involved, but it will be a fair and equal split between the collaborators so that we provide a win-win for everyone.

OK: Who would you consider as competition?

DT: In Memphis there is none. However, there are a lot of very good research groups out there in the rest of the U.S. and across the world. I would consider some of the stronger academic and hospital groups to be competition, although we’re not going to duplicate what they’re already doing. We want to set our own direction built on our skill sets, and focus on issues that are important in musculoskeletal conditions.

I think our independence is also a very important difference. We have more flexibility in how we get things done. We want to be able to accomplish our work in a rapid fashion, using collaborators as necessary so that the entire project is complete when we turn it over to our contracting agent. It’s really been a fun experience so far.

OK: What advice would you have for young people just entering the orthopaedic industry?

DT: Follow your dreams. Gain as much clinical experience as possible and always keep the patient’s needs as your focus.