CSU partners with UCHealth’s hospitals in Loveland, Fort Collins

FORT COLLINS – Colorado State University, Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and the Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland announced on Tuesday a major research partnership.

As part of the agreement, the CSU and the two University of Colorado Health hospitals will collaborate in clinical trials, funding opportunities, technology transfer, employee education and training and marketing.

The joint research among these institutions has already spawned development of several medical improvements, including a new arterial stent that helps prevent blood clotting and a hernia patch that fights infection.

SPONSORED CONTENT

The many benefits of simple, coordinated healthcare

Kaiser Permanente combines health care and coverage in one connected system to maximize employee health and minimize employer costs.

Julie Dunn, trauma medical director of research at MCR, said that the partnership helps complement each other’s strengths.

“It’s like wedding of the ideas. For instance, I don’t have an engineering background, but the university researchers have. Our abilities often times are refined,” Dunn said.

Dr. Gary Luckasen, medical director of research at MCR, said in a statement that the hospitals rely on the research that is done at CSU, whether it is with animals or in a chemistry lab, and CSU requires access to the doctors and human patients who will use the products and treatments that emerge from the research.

Melissa Reynolds, an associate professor of chemistry at CSU who is collaborating with local physicians on products that promote healing, said in a statement that “the agreement improves the entities’ chances of landing research grants, since funding agencies look more favorably on existing collaborations than proposals for creating new partnerships from scratch. Having to draw new agreements and nondisclosure arrangements for each collaborative project creates delays. So, the partnership streamlines and speeds the process for launching and funding new initiatives.”