As someone who splits his time between Lexington and Louisville, Ian McClure has always maintained a full schedule.
Now, the associate vice president for research, innovation and economic impact — and the executive director at UK Innovate — at the University of Kentucky, will have a little more on his plate as it was recently announced that McClure would also be serving as the vice president of innovation for UK HealthCare.
“Ian is a recognized national leader and expert in innovation and the development and commercialization of intellectual capital,” said Eric Monday, UK’s co-executive vice president for health affairs said in a release. “Health care is a space that will need even greater innovation — whether in our own digital health advancements and technology innovations or through creative partnerships with other providers and health companies — to extend the provision of advanced care to more people.
“This addition to Ian’s portfolio of responsibilities underscores our commitment to connecting discovery and care and leveraging innovation to meet our growing health system needs with discoveries in our research labs and clinical operations and through external partnerships with providers, technology companies and community organizations to make the advanced care that we expect to provide accessible to more people in our state,” Monday continued in the statement.
McClure first arrived at UK in 2016 as the executive director of the university’s Office of Technology Commercialization, according to his LinkedIn profile. He took over the associate vice president role in 2021, while simultaneously establishing UK Innovate.
Before coming to UK, McClure had spent several years in the private sector. He served as the vice president for intellectual property (IP) strategy at Black Stone IP, an investment bank based in San Francisco. He started his career as an attorney specializing in mergers and acquisitions and IP transactions with Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP, based in Louisville.
McClure is an appointed member to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He has served in an advisory role for the U.S. National Science Foundation and is a former board chair of the Association of University of Technology Managers, according to the release.
He also serves as a technology transfer advisor for XLerateHealth, a health tech accelerator based out of Louisville that runs in partnership with UK Innovate. In August, the accelerator announced its most recent cohort, which included Dr. Brittany Levy, who works at UK's College of Medicine. Levy has founded TalkiTourni, according to a separate press release, which produced an "automated emergency tourniquet device aimed to improve rates of adequately applied tourniquets outside of the hospital setting."
According to information provided by UK HealthCare, the organization predicts it will need a minimum of 5,000 more health professionals in the next couple of years to meet the needs of the communities it serves. It will be McClure’s main responsibility to find the innovation, technology and partnerships to complement that influx of headcount in the UK HealthCare system.
“Our vision is to establish UK HealthCare as an innovation leader and partner-ready enterprise capable of enhancing its ability to perform patient care, conduct research and create health care access through technology, innovation and entrepreneurial partnerships and projects,” McClure said in the release. “UK HealthCare has the opportunity to be an innovation-forward thought leader on a regional and national level, but most importantly in ways that improve the health of the state we serve and seek to advance."
UK Innovate oversees Launch Blue, a Lexington-based accelerator, that was founded in 2020 as a way to promote Kentucky-based startups in partnership with Bluegrass Angels and the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC). This past June, Launch Blue Ventures was launched as a spinoff of Launch Blue with Raechelle Smalls — a former member of the Endeavor Midwest team — serving as its director.
In addition, UK Innovate hosts Kentucky Innovator Challenge on the UK campus, an all-day summit that typically takes place in April.
