Inside the Structural Reforms That Made IU Indianapolis a Translational Overachiever
How a resource-constrained university built a top-15 translation engine — and what other institutions can learn from it.
Top Universities
Every university on this list represents the highest tier of U.S. biomedical research. We ranked 243 research universities across the United States on their ability to translate scientific discovery into real-world healthcare solutions, evaluated on 25 indicators across three core domains.
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University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
San Antonio, TX
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio ranks 31st among universities in the Cure Innovation Index and is located in San Antonio, Texas. The university's Research Capabilities place in the upper tier, with Market Translation also performing above average; together they reflect an orientation toward discovery.
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University of Massachusetts Medical School
Worcester, MA
University of Massachusetts Medical School ranks 32nd among universities in the Cure Innovation Index. Based in Worcester, Massachusetts, the university's research profile tilts toward foundational science, yet its Entrepreneurial Readiness is among its strongest attributes, placing 19th.
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University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA
The University of California, Irvine ranks 33rd among universities in the Cure Innovation Index. Located in Irvine, California, the university performs consistently across all three domains, with strong standings in Research Capabilities, Market Translation, and Entrepreneurial Readiness that reflect a balance between discovery science and clinical translation.
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Albert Einstein College of Medicine
The Bronx, NY
Albert Einstein College of Medicine ranks 34th among universities in the Cure Innovation Index, situated in the Bronx, New York. The university performs in the upper tier across Research Capabilities, Market Translation, and Entrepreneurial Readiness, with comparable standing in each.
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University of Florida
Gainesville, FL
University of Florida ranks 35th among universities in the Cure Innovation Index, based in Gainesville, Florida. The university's standout performance comes in Market Translation, where it places 21st, while Research Capabilities and Entrepreneurial Readiness also land in the upper tier.
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University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
University of California, Berkeley ranks 36th among universities in the Cure Innovation Index. Located in Berkeley, California, the university ranks 22nd in Market Translation and 36th in Entrepreneurial Readiness, while Research Capabilities rank 60th.
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University of Texas Medical Branch
Galveston, TX
The University of Texas Medical Branch, based in Galveston, Texas, ranks 37th among U.S. universities in the Cure Innovation Index. Research Capabilities is its strongest domain, where it places 25th, reflecting a profile that leans toward discovery science.
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University of Rochester
Rochester, NY
The University of Rochester ranks 38th among universities in the Cure Innovation Index and is based in Rochester, New York. Entrepreneurial readiness is the university's strongest domain, where it places 20th, and its market translation performance also falls in the upper tier.
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University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Charlottesville, VA
The University of Virginia, located in Charlottesville, ranks 39th among 243 universities in the Cure Innovation Index. The university shows consistent strength across Research Capabilities and Market Translation, placing among the top-ranked institutions in both domains, with Entrepreneurial Readiness somewhat further down the list.
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Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX
Baylor College of Medicine ranks 40th among universities in the Cure Innovation Index, based in Houston, Texas. Market translation is its leading domain, with research capabilities close behind; entrepreneurial readiness, though slightly lower, remains in the upper quarter of ranked universities.
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Cure Innovation Index Methodology
From a pool of more than 6,000 institutions, the top 303 were ranked using two dozen indicators — from scientific foundation and lab infrastructure to patents, products, and partnerships — drawn from more than a dozen federal and commercial databases, an original audit of all institutions, and surveys of more than 3,300+ scientists, industry leaders, and biomedical experts.
Explore by Category
Innovation isn't a single moment — it's an entire ecosystem. The Index evaluates institutions across two dozen indicators, grouped in three core domains that reveal the full picture of what it takes to turn groundbreaking science into real-world impact.
Insights From the Cure Innovation Index
New York State Has Built One of the Country’s Most Powerful Biomedical Ecosystems
With 27 institutions ranked among the country’s top biomedical innovators, New York’s research cluster spans the entire state, and outperforms nearly every other in the country.
Universities Face an Uncertain Future as Gap To Industry Keeps Growing
As NIH funding shrinks and industry pulls back from early-stage science, universities are rethinking how discoveries move from the lab to the market.
How Universities Became the Engine of the Biotech Industry
The Bayh-Dole Act turned federally funded research into a commercialization pipeline that built American biotech. Forty-five years later, that pipeline faces a new set of political and financial pressures that could reshape how it works.
