BioHealth Innovation (BHI), a new regional private-public partnership, has selected Todd Chappell as the first entrepreneur-in-residence for BHI at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Technology Transfer (OTT).

Chappell is a venture capital-backed entrepreneurial leader and inventor with more than 10 years of experience in molecular biology research, drug development and life sciences business strategy. Before coming to BHI, he served as the vice president of operations at venture-capital backed Shape Pharmaceuticals, and prior to that he spent nine years at CombinatoRx as director of new products.

As the first entrepreneur-in-residence, Chappell—who will have dual responsibility to both BHI and NIH—will assist OTT in the evaluation of existing technologies, provide an entrepreneurial perspective to OTT in its evaluation of new licensing proposals from start-up companies, advise OTT on opportunities for new ventures based on NIH/FDA technologies, assist with developmental strategies and mentor scientists to help ensure their research becomes commercially valuable.

"There is tremendous start-up potential coming from the 27 institutes of NIH and the FDA research labs,” said Chappell. “With the right strategies and management, new entrepreneurial ventures will be created, and with them, new research, technology and commercially viable health care solutions."