Mount Sinai Awarded $11.6 Million Grant to Launch Comprehensive Center for Surgical Innovation and Expand Mount Sinai BioDesign

Work will benefit patients, contribute to job creation and economic growth in New York City.

In a move that has the potential to change the future of surgery, advance quality care, and bring economic growth to New York City, Mount Sinai Health System announced today the launch of the Comprehensive Center for Surgical Innovation (CCSI). This bold new initiative is supported by an $11.6 million grant from Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and expands upon the activities of Mount Sinai Biodesign, the Health System’s device incubator.

Mayor Adams made the announcement on Wednesday that Mount Sinai Health System along with The City College of New York (CCNY) would each receive multimillion-dollar investments to support the construction of new facilities.

“With these awards, our administration is making critical investments in the health and prosperity of New Yorkers,” said Mayor Adams. “Life sciences are central to our city’s public health and economic recovery, and we will continue to marshal the resources necessary to grow this industry, create new economic opportunities for New Yorkers, and keep our city moving forward.”

The Center will be located in a new state-of-the-art facility at 432 West 58th Street in Midtown Manhattan, steps from the Mount Sinai West hospital campus. The CCSI will facilitate and accelerate the development and commercialization of innovative technologies and instrumentation that will enhance the safety, quality, and efficiency of surgical procedures, resulting in improved outcomes among patients in New York City and globally. It will propel innovation in surgical technology development by training a diverse generation of researchers, engineers, and physicians, resulting in solutions that reflect a wider range of perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds and thus have wide-reaching benefits.

This investment from NYCEDC is intended to amplify the efforts of Mount Sinai BioDesign, which has attracted innovative startup companies and venture capital to New York City and has inspired new ventures generating commercial licensing agreements and millions in funding. The new CCSI will build upon success in scaling innovative discoveries, nurturing collaborative partnerships with industry leaders, and supporting a pipeline of young entrepreneurs who launch startup companies that bring new ideas to the market and into surgical arenas around the world. These initiatives will not only improve the delivery of care but also generate new jobs, diversify the pool of life sciences talent, and serve as a major driver of economic development for New York City.

“We are thrilled to award this funding to Mount Sinai Health System to launch the Comprehensive Center for Surgical Innovation, said NYCEDC President and CEO Andrew Kimball. “Strategic investments like this by NYCEDC’s LifeSci NYC initiative bridge research, innovative technologies, commercialization, and education to support biomedical leaders to advance groundbreaking research and health care technologies in New York City. We look forward to the startups, jobs, and life changing medical devices this Center will yield to support patient care and treatment.”

“Mount Sinai BioDesign’s mission is to help patients by creating technological solutions for their medical problems, to generate jobs and high-value assets in New York City, and to educate a diversified generation of engineers, scientists, and clinicians,” said Joshua Bederson, MD, Leonard I. Malis, MD/Corinne and Joseph Graber Professor and Chair of Neurosurgery at the Mount Sinai Health System. “Thanks to this key investment in the new Comprehensive Center for Surgical Innovation by the Mayor and NYCEDC, we envision a crosscutting incubator lab where our talented scientists, programs, prototyping, and testing will bring new devices to market that promise to change the future of medicine and surgery.”

“Mount Sinai has been in a leader in the innovation space with the primary goals of solving complex health issues for patients and advancing science and medicine,” said Evan L. Flatow, MD, Bernard J. Lasker Professor of Orthopedics, President of Mount Sinai West, and Director of the Comprehensive Center for Surgical Innovation. “Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in surgical innovation and leading efforts to develop next-generation joint replacements. It has been a lifelong dream of mine to build a surgical innovation lab at Mount Sinai to bring surgical discoveries and innovative methods into commercial health solutions that benefit patients. This dream is now a reality thanks to the support of the Mayor and the NYCEDC, and our collaboration with Mount Sinai BioDesign. The investment in the Comprehensive Center for Surgical Innovation will enable rapid development of new breakthroughs and products, along with new commercial enterprises that result in sustainable job creation and economic growth.”

The Center also builds on Mount Sinai’s commitment to accelerate the pace of life sciences and bioengineering innovation and entrepreneurship in New York City. That commitment is reflected in the spring 2022 announcement of the Center for Engineering and Precision Medicine—a partnership between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai that will create one of the first centers nationwide to bridge engineering and engineering science with medicine.

“Mount Sinai has tremendous momentum in innovation, actualizing many achievements and successes in patient-centric solutions, and bringing these to the market and to the patients who need them,” said Erik Lium, PhD, Chief Commercial Innovation Officer at the Mount Sinai Health System, and President of Mount Sinai Innovation Partners. “The new surgical innovation center, alongside existing and future academic and industry partners, will harness research, clinical, and commercial strengths to rapidly advance breakthrough devices to the clinic.”

“The Mount Sinai Health System and the Icahn School of Medicine are dynamic ecosystems for innovators. We have created an environment that fosters innovation and attracts best-in-class researchers and collaborators from across the nation and globe,” said Dennis S. Charney, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs of Mount Sinai Health System. “We are driven by a larger mission to work together, leveraging unique points of views and experiences, to solve the most intricate challenges in medicine and life sciences. To be bold and relentless in our pursuits and to find a way to advance medicine for the benefit of every human being.”

In addition to the oversight provided by Drs. Flatow, Bederson, and Lium, leadership will be provided by Benjamin I. Rapoport, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Scientific Director of Mount Sinai BioDesign, and by Scott L. Friedman, MD, Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine, Dean for Therapeutic Discovery, and Chief of Liver Diseases at Icahn Mount Sinai.