GRAND RAPIDS ? Van Andel Institute and Michigan State University on Wednesday signed a medical education and research collaboration agreement that will help bring a four-year medical school to Grand Rapids and commercialize biomedical discoveries and treatments.
The agreement was signed by VAI Chairman and CEO David Van Andel and MSU President Lou Anna Simon on the day before MichBio Expo 2006 at the DeVos Convention Center in downtown Grand Rapids.
?This exemplary health and biomedical research program will significantly increase the opportunities for new leading-edge medical research and specialty medicine in West Michigan,? Van Andel said. ?We are very pleased that our board of trustees unanimously approved this agreement and that we will be moving forward with plans to bring the MSU medical school to West Michigan. This initiative is directly aligned with the Van Andel Research Institute?s mission to become a world-class translational research center.?
The new health and biomedical research-intensive medical school will create an innovative molecular medicine curriculum and will include five research clusters: cancer, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, arthritis, and neurobiology. Initial focus will be on cancer and cardiovascular disease with an emphasis on translational research.
The partners intend to hire 15 researchers including five basic scientists, five clinical physician scientists, and five population-based scientists, statisticians/epidemiologists over the first one to three years, with a goal of achieving approximately 40 hires in five years of the new medical school operation. The number of new hires will depend on goals set within each research cluster and the success with recruitment. The scientists will be selected jointly by MSU and the Institute and may also have appointments at VAI.
The medical school faculty will perform their research within VAI?s 248,000 square-foot Phase II expansion. The agreement calls for the university to lease office, research and instructional lab space upon completion of Phase II slated to open in 2009. The research clusters will be funded by VAI and MSU, with VAI committing $2 million annually for the eight-year term of the agreement and MSU committing to obtaining and providing the remaining resources necessary to locate and finance a four-year accredited medical school in Grand Rapids.
The parties intend that the medical school will be a cornerstone as West Michigan builds a center for the development of valuable intellectual property and life science commercialization. Intellectual property ownership rights are outlined in the agreement and will be used to offset the parties? financial obligations and to further the purposes of the research agenda contained within the agreement.
In addition to the new research clusters, the agreement encourages further collaboration of VAI and MSU scientists.
?The Van Andel Institute is a valued addition to this bold, collaborative initiative,? MSU?s Simon said. ?With its impressive research program, the institute will play a major role in helping us design a medical school for the 21st century, one that is able to translate cutting-edge biomedical discoveries into the clinics and hospitals of not only West Michigan but the state and nation.?
The agreement is effective through 2015 and is renewable for subsequent five-year terms.
This agreement in support of the West Michigan Medical School is the second formal agreement between MSU and a West Michigan institution since a group of community stakeholders began developing a plan for the initiative in 2004. The first agreement was signed with Spectrum Health in April of this year.
In addition to MSU, VAI and Spectrum, the stakeholder group includes Grand Action, Grand Valley State University, Saint Mary?s Health Care and The Right Place.
Next steps in this process include the completion of contracts between other stakeholders and MSU. Once fund raising for the new facility is substantially certain, a site will be selected and a building designed and constructed. MSU will finalize the curriculum for the medical school so that the accreditation process can be completed in time for the arrival of students. The Proof of Concept contemplates the first students arriving in 2008 and the full four-year medical school in place by 2010.
