North Shore-LIJ Health System, the second-largest nonprofit in the U.S. secular healthcare system, has joined Cleveland Clinic’s Innovation Alliance program to enhance the discovery, development, deployment and commercialization of new technologies.

The primary goal of the collaboration is to leverage the capabilities of Cleveland Clinic to help turn the discoveries made at North Shore-LIJ’s Feinstein Institute for Medical Research facility into diagnostic and treatment options that can be used to improve patient care. The alliance, which will also identify other opportunities for joint projects within North Shore-LIJ, will be led by Cleveland Clinic chief innovations officer Thomas Graham, M.D., and executive director Chris Coburn, and Feinstein Institute president Kevin Tracey, M.D.

Cleveland Clinic will provide extensive support to the Feinstein Institute to help bring medical technologies from the "bench to the bedside." The two institutions will have a shared focus on developing new and innovative technologies that are commercially viable, while always exploring additional collaborative opportunities that exist between the two organizations.

Over the past decade, breakthroughs originating at the Feinstein Institute have led to the creation of 11 start-up companies and more than 200 active patents that comprise 80 distinct technologies. Through this collaboration with Cleveland Clinic, Feinstein Institute officials say they hope to pursue commercialization ventures focused on diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, cancer, sepsis, Alzheimer's and schizophrenia.

North Shore-LIJ is the second institution in the country to join Cleveland Clinic's Innovation Alliance program, the first being MedStar Health—the mid-Atlantic's largest healthcare system.