Emory University Has Drug Venture

Emory University has launched a public-private drug development enterprise that it says will move scientific discoveries more rapidly from university laboratories to the marketplace. Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory, or Drive, is a nonprofit that will combine the expertise of Emory scientists with a business development and management team, the school says. Drive will function as the “industrial partner” of the four-year-old Emory Institute for Drug Development, founded by Emory chemist Dennis Liotta. Its initial efforts will be financed by $10 million in royalties from the Gilead Sciences HIV drug Emtriva, which Liotta coinvented.