The Technology Development Investment Fund (TDIF)
The TDIF program, managed by MSK’s Office of Entrepreneurship & Commercialization, provides early-stage investment for MSK inventions and initiatives with strong commercialization potential. Developed to address crucial gap funding needs through a competitive awards process, a TDIF investment can be the deciding factor in MSK innovators' ability to progress promising technologies.
TDIF is a key element in OEC’s multifaceted network of initiatives designed to fuel innovation and entrepreneurship at MSK. It launched with one investment vehicle in 2009 and has since expanded to include three investment programs, including one focused on AI projects. TDIF also now aligns closely with the MSK Entrepreneurship Initiative (EI), another key OEC initiative, providing investment funding to new ventures in incubation through the EI Cohort program.
TDIF’s impact on MSK’s Commercialization Ecosystem is significant. To date, the TDIF has advanced technologies to more than 30 industry partnerships and successful startups, including two FDA-approved drugs, directly supporting MSK's research and institutional mission.
The TDIF management team includes Imke Ehlers-Surur, PhD, Director, Technology Development & Licensing, who provides overall leadership; Benjamin Mumford, MS, Senior Manager, Business Development & Licensing, and Erica Levine, Senior Project Manager, who together manage TDIF and flexTDIF; and Jake Cohen, MS, AI Tech Fund Lead, who manages the aiTDIF program.
- $40M TDIF investments to date
- 135+ MSK projects have received TDIF, flexTDIF, and aiTDIF investments
- 30+ Industry partnerships and startups involving TDIF projects
- 2 FDA approved drugs from TDIF projects
TDIF Award Opportunities
The TDIF program launched with one funding mechanism: the full TDIF, which provides up to $500,000 in critical gap funding over a two-year period for early-stage therapeutics, diagnostics, and other novel technologies. This award cycle takes place annually and launches with an RFA every year in January.
These full TDIF projects might generate in vivo survival or target-validation data or a device prototype, while later-stage projects can support IND-enabling toxicology studies, CMC work, or a Phase 1 trial. This funding mechanism has helped move MSK science through some of the most challenging inflection points, from an early hypothesis to partnership-ready data.
flexTDIF
The flexTDIF is a bridge funding vehicle, targeting the same early-stage therapeutics, diagnostics, and other novel technologies as the full TDIF – but it instead addresses pressing, shorter-term needs that can't wait for the next full funding cycle. One example: a short-term project that aims to quickly generate data to strengthen a package after feedback from a potential licensing partner.
Launched in 2022 and administered by OEC, flexTDIF has backed 30 projects to date, with 8-10 new awards each year, providing up to $200,000 in direct costs over one year. It is built for speed, including a faster, more flexible review, which ensures that projects won’t lose momentum waiting for a funding decision.
aiTDIF
Launched in 2025, aiTDIF is MSK's newest investment vehicle, created as AI and cloud technology increasingly drive oncology research and care. It targets projects facing a critical gap—for example, a specific piece of data, validation, or infrastructure whose absence might stand between the work and the potential to achieve its next milestone. In addition to capital, aiTDIF pairs investigators with the compute credits and technical support that these projects need in order to build and scale.
Funded projects span a broad range, including AI drug discovery, clinical trials, hospital operations, imaging, patient engagement apps, and clinical decision support.
Funding at Every Stage
No matter where a project sits — early proof-of-concept, late-stage validation, or somewhere between — the TDIF, flexTDIF, and aiTDIF together cover the full runway to commercialization.
TDF funds projects from pre-clinical through clinical technology development.
TDIF FAQs
MSK principal investigators and co-investigators with a technology or innovation that shows strong commercialization potential.
Applications are reviewed by a committee made up of both internal MSK reviewers and external reviewers.
TDIF's external advisory network is made up of venture capitalists, investors, and pharma/biotech industry leaders who help evaluate a project's commercialization potential alongside MSK's internal review.
TDIF is part of a broader set of co-funding vehicles at MSK that work closely alongside other innovation initiatives, such as the Entrepreneurship Initiative, to support commercialization at every stage. These programs are designed to complement one another, so investigators can often draw on more than one as their project progresses.
Contact
- Imke Ehlers, Ben Mumford, and Erica Levine for TDIF and flexTDIF
- Jake Cohen for aiTDIF