VCU inventors can make big bucks with their creations — if the stars align – The Virginian

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Dr. Jonathan Isaacs, a surgeon and researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University, invented a medical device that is revolutionizing surgeries and improving lives. Yet he will never become ultra-wealthy from his creation, he said.

Isaacs invented Nerve Tape, which binds together broken nerves better than previous methods. Though the product was his idea, he doesn’t own the company that sells it or the patent behind the technology. VCU licensed the right to make and sell Nerve Tape to an Atlanta-based firm called BioCircuit Technologies. For every sale, BioCircuit pays a royalty to VCU, and the university shares a percentage with Isaacs.

“With the royalties I’m getting, I will visit an island,” he said. But the inventor fortunate enough to cre