Webinar: how do you build an impact-driven spin-off out of academia?

18 June 2026, 16:00 CEST

Learn how to build a venture to turn science into reality. Socially, Responsible. 

After this session you will:   

• Know which impact routes are available for promising innovations addressing unmet medical needs 
• Walk away with a practical feasibility checklist to assess which route fits your research 
• Understand the full pathway from lab to patient 
• Recognize the key challenges across regulatory, clinical, funding, and business dimensions 
• Gain real-world insight through the Guanabenz case study 

What this session is about  

Academia is a powerful source of innovation, generating novel solutions to both longstanding and emerging medical challenges. UMCs offer a wealth of clinical experience and deep matter expertise to identify new drug opportunities. But turning an opportunity into a product is a challenge. 

Turning a discovery into a treatment requires more than a strong research foundation. It also involves regulatory strategy, clinical development, funding, partnerships, manufacturing, market access, and a viable route to sustainable patient access. That long and challenging road is exactly where many projects fail.   

This session is designed to help you navigate that road. 

How the session works  

How do you get from academic proof to patient access? We break it down step by step. 

During the session, we will unpack the key topics that converge in valorization, give an overview of the impact routes available to researchers, bring these concepts to life through a real case study and hand out a feasibility checklist you can apply to your own project.

1. Break down what sits between research and market 

We start by mapping out everything that lies between a research finding and a marketable therapy. This includes: 

• Regulatory planning  
• Clinical development 
• Funding pathways  
• Business structure  
• Governance and collaboration  
• Access and affordability considerations  

We will show you why the failure rate is so high for these kinds of projects. The goal is to show how these pieces connect and why addressing them early matters. 

2. Understand the possible routes 

We outline the key impact routes available for bringing academic discovery to patients.

3. Use a real case study: Guanabenz 

To make this practical, we use the Guanabenz case study as a concrete example.  

Prof dr. Marjo van der Knaap from Amsterdam UMC identified guanabenz as a promising repurposing candidate for Vanishing White Matter disease, a rare neurological disease in children with no approved treatment. Orfenix helped support the route forward through protocol, regulatory, and development support, and the project became GuanaRep as an Amsterdam UMC socially responsible spin-out.  

Using this case, we show how different strategic, regulatory, clinical, and organizational questions come together in practice. 

4. Apply the feasibility checklist 

We introduce a practical feasibility checklist to help you assess which impact route best fits your research. 

This checklist is designed to help you assess questions such as:  

• What stage is your research in  
• What kind of development work is still needed  
• Which capabilities are missing  
• Whether your project fits a standard or an alternative route  
• What kind of structure would allow moving your promising research to clinical application  

5. Q&A

This session closes with an open Q&A, giving you the opportunity to ask your questions directly to the experts. 

Who this webinar is for  

This webinar is relevant for:  

• Principal Investigators  
• Clinician-scientists  
• Translational researchers  
• PhD’ers with an interest in patient impact  
• Patient representatives  
• Others involved in moving therapeutic research toward clinical application  

This session is for you if: 

• You want to develop a new therapy  
• You want to generate patient impact  
• You want to start my own company