InMotion Given $3.6 Million From Local Foundations

by Scott Shepard | Memphis Business Journal | Monday, May 22, 2006

Two Memphis foundations have invested serious cash into the vision of building the city's biotech industry.

The Plough Foundation and the Assisi Foundation of Memphis Inc. have agreed to provide $3.6 million over three years to the InMotion Musculoskeletal Institute to help jump-start biotech activity. Part of the money will allow InMotion to complete renovation of space at 20 S. Dudley into lab and office space, but that project is part of the greater goal of recruiting promising young scientists to build their operations in Memphis.

"Our vision is that we want to build a center of excellence to make Memphis the hub of innovation, research and entrepreneurship in the musculoskeletal field," says Dick Tarr, executive director of InMotion. "Obviously we've conveyed that message to them very well."

InMotion grew out of a Batelle study commissioned by Memphis Tomorrow, which asked what the city needs to become a leader in biotechnology. Batelle highlighted the existing local strength in orthopedics and medical devices, recommending the creation of an organization that would focus on and promote it.

While Memphis Bioworks Foundation develops a research park at the site of the former Baptist-Medical Center, InMotion's mission is to identify key up-and-coming scientists and persuade them to move to Memphis. Lab space at the Dudley building and eventually at UT-Baptist Research Park is one inducement, but Tarr is also taking the long view: Ambitious young scientists with an entrepreneurial bent are more inclined to move someplace where they can be a star and build an industry.

Their inventions will provide research jobs today and jobs in manufacturing, marketing and distribution in the future. The goal is for scientists who are also clinicians because they're the ones who see medical problems first hand and will design products that go quickly to market.

Tarr has been promoting Memphis as the place where entrepreneurial clinical researchers can get in on the ground floor of a growing industry and have a role in shaping the future. InMotion has been designed to be irresistible to scientists, with amenities such as virgin lab space plus a full-time grant writer, Chris Przybyszewski.

The Assisi Foundation awarded a $250,000 grant this year and an equal amount in 2007, which will be used to outfit 6,000 square feet of space to include a biomechanical lab and a second laboratory.

The Plough Foundation has agreed to fund $3.1 million over three years for capital costs as well as three primary research positions. The first two will be clinical scientists with a joint appointment with the UT Department of Orthopaedic Surgery-Campbell Clinic, with the hope to find someone who can also be an associate professor at UT.

The third will be a director of biomechanics with a joint appointment to InMotion and the University of Memphis Department of Biomedical Engineering. That would be a person who is available to any researcher, providing engineering support.

A typical scientist will have six associated staff members, so the job impact becomes apparent quickly, Tarr says.

In the realm of medical research $3.6 million may not sound huge, he says. But, it's seed money from private foundations, and it's enough to get things moving and provide InMotion with stability.

The Plough Foundation was established in 1960 by Abe Plough to promote philanthropic purposes by making grants to not-for-profit organizations in Memphis and Shelby County.

The Assisi Foundation was created in 1984 from the proceeds of the sale of Saint Francis Hospital for an estimated $95 million. The foundation was a way of keeping the money in the community and avoiding the tax implications of the sale from a not-for-profit to a for-profit entity. Since then, Assisi has awarded more than $80 million in grants to support health care, education, literacy and social justice.

InMotion has received further funding from the Hyde Family Foundations and Campbell Foundation, as well as from Medtronic Sofamor Danek, a division of Medtronic Inc. (NYSE: MDT).

InMotion also has contracts to perform pre-clinical and clinical research for a variety of local and national orthopedic implant and pharmaceutical companies.