Raymond Goodrich, PhD

​As the Executive Director of the Infectious Disease Research Center (IDRC), Dr. Goodrich has responsibility for oversight of the Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing and Academic Resource Center (BioMARC) and the Research Innovation Center (RIC).

BioMARC is an FDA-inspected not-for-profit service entity that specializes in the production of biologic products that require high containment facilities. The RIC facility houses faculty and private industry research programs requiring biocontainment and general laboratory support environments.

It’s wonderful to have great ideas.  Many people have great ideas. If you are satisfied having a great idea and showing its applicability as a greater understanding of the world or greater understanding of human or animal health, that’s terrific. I was never satisfied with that. I wanted to see the things we were doing and the knowledge we were creating go to that next step and translate into products, services, processes, methods, and tools that physicians would use for the benefit of their patients. I wanted to see that my work was serving a need in the community. The effective way of doing that, for me, was to utilize the company environment either through tech transfer and licensing, or through new company formation and integration.

I have also published and presented data of mine and my collaborators at scientific meetings to advance general knowledge. We cannot omit that. Without basic science, translational science is like trying to translate a blank sheet of paper. I just was never satisfied stopping there, which is why I have started multiple companies. My goal is to get a product into the hands of the people who can benefit from it. I have been very fortunate in that most of the products I have worked on have reached that goal. There is a satisfaction that comes from that success, which  drives you on the next time. Because you go into development each time with a knowledge of how hard it was the time before, in many ways it becomes harder to try it again and again.  I have been fortunate in that many of my prior efforts were successful. My hope is that my work has made meaningful impact in the lives of patients and benefitted healthcare providers by making these kinds of tools available. That’s the kind of thing that drives me and many of my colleagues to take on the challenges that come with developing new products.

We need both invention and innovation. I learned about the difference between the two at a seminar program at CSU hosted by Bryan Willson. Invention is having an idea, the ” a-ha moment”. Innovation is collectively bringing together all of the elements of a team or group to make that idea beneficial for many more people. We can see this through the invention of penicillin. Alexander Fleming was the inventor: he had an idea to take this material being produced by bacteria and fungi as antibacterial drugs and use it to treat infections. But, he was talking about infection on the bacterial plates and being able to keep culture plates sterile in the lab. It’s a great idea, but that’s all it ever would have been used for if not for Howard Florey’s innovation of carrying out clinical trials on the use of penicillin. It was about focusing on the details and forming the team to make that possible. They  needed fermenters, they needed engineers to build the vats and production devices, biochemists/biologists/microbiologists to grow the bacteria, and chemists who understood how to purify those materials. It was only through both Fleming’s discovery and Florey’s work that we have antibiotic products that have a major impact on world health to this day. Both invention and innovation are important if you want to see advances in science and engineering; you need to build a team and put them together in the right ways to make things happen.