September 23, 2021

Lindsay Klee joins Wayne State University as leader for commercialization and technology transfer

Fuel innovation

Lindsay Klee has been named senior director of technology commercialization for Wayne State University’s Technology Commercialization Team in the Office of the Provost.

Klee, founder of Intent®, has provided commercialization and operational solutions — particularly in regulatory and reimbursement domains — since 2009 to a wide variety of clients and investors.

Klee

She previously served as both interim managing director and commercialization director for the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center and was directly responsible for pioneering and managing a “Concept to Commercialization” product development gap fund for health care, medical device, therapeutic, IT and diagnostic technologies. Klee has also served as associate director and consultative director for nationally noted technology transfer and innovation groups.

“I want to infuse my positive energy and enthusiasm for commercialization throughout the university community in such a way that people feel inspired to persevere in new ways on commercial endeavors,” Klee said. “I also want to increase appropriate resources, such as proactive case management and funding mechanisms that support accelerated bridges to commercialization milestones. Those are passions of mine.”

Klee joins the team to lead WSU’s Technology Commercialization Office which is responsible for the identification, protection, marketing and licensing of intellectual property — e.g., patents, unique biological or other materials, and certain copyrights — developed by faculty, staff and students. The office promotes an entrepreneurial culture and supports startup ventures and regional economic development.

Roling

“We are very excited to have Lindsay join the team as our new technology commercialization leader. She is extremely well regarded in the Michigan innovation community,” said Matt Roling, executive director for Wayne State’s Office of Business Innovation. “Her experience bringing new technologies to market will be critical in helping Wayne State faculty translate research into new inventions.”

Born in Texas and raised in Flint, Michigan, Klee began her career in drug discovery working with multidrug-resistant microorganisms at Pfizer Global Research and Development. While working in the lab and the scientific process was fascinating, Klee knew she wanted to make a more immediate impact.

“You couldn’t simply grow the cells faster. There are certain things you can do to stimulate growth, but speeding up the product development or treatment-to-market process was difficult,” Klee said. “I became interested in how you could accelerate innovation and commercialization. I wanted to take possible marketable, valuable intellectual property and convert it to products that not only helped people, but which also could be bought, sold and have revenue growth potential for companies.”

From Pfizer, Klee explored tech transfer, finance, public health and health care management academically and professionally. She then moved to Philadelphia and worked nationally for clients in the life sciences and health care consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she gained experience in mergers and acquisitions, financial transactions, compliance, strategic planning, and key business contractual and negotiation domains, which was relevant to the work she continues today. Klee has also consulted with venture capital investors, health care institutions and product manufacturers; served with the Michigan SBDC Tech Team; is active with MichBio; and worked as part of the Belle Michigan LP General Partnership.

“I come into this role on the shoulders of tech transfer, innovation and commercialization giants who have supported me throughout my career,” Klee said. “And some of them are still working in this region. I’m sincerely delighted to be a leader in a league of other leaders.”

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