Economic Development & Business Assistance

The Edison Biotechnology Institute is part of a larger entrepreneurial ecosystem at Ohio University designed to support technology commercialization and economic development in southeastern Ohio.

EBI provides biosciences business and commercialization assistance to Ohio University faculty, regional entrepreneurs, and companies in a 20-county region to help companies get started, provide initial inputs of capital, and prepare companies to acquire additional rounds of funding to help them move forward.

EBI works closely with the university’s Technology Transfer Office and its small business incubator, the Innovation Center, to provide assistance as well as state-of-the art laboratory and office space for bioscience companies. This combination has attracted a number of early stage companies to the region.

Working in partnership with TechGROWTH Ohio, the regional Entrepreneurial Signature Program of the Ohio Third Frontier Commission, staff at EBI assist both faculty and non-university entrepreneurs with growing and funding technology-based regional start-up companies.

The Natural Products Research and Commercialization Center at EBI represents an initiative to proactively impact economic development in the region by linking the drug development capabilities of the university with manufacturing and agricultural resources in the region to create an infrastructure for discovery and commercialization of new plant-based therapies.