Wake's latest take.

• Position: TRIAD REGION - Pappas Capital will invest 15 million to bring Wake Forest Family Medicine Inc technology to its business

Converting scientific research into a full-fledged company takes money, and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has secured one of North Carolina's most successful investment groups to propel its scientists through the process. Durham-based Pappas Capital will infuse $15 million into Wake Forest Innovations to bring technology developed by hospital researchers and faculty from idea to commercial product. About 100 pieces of technology based on findings from the Winston-Salem-based medical center have been brought to market since the innovations division was started in 2012. Its most successful product dates back to the 1990s, when the wound Vacuum-Assisted Closure--used to treat injuries once considered beyond care--was licensed in the early 1990s to San Antonio, Texas-based Kinetic Concepts. Now called Acelity, the company is paying Wake Forest $280 million in royalties through 2017.

The medical center has also made a name for itself over the last decade in the field of regenerative medicine, which allows scientists to grow living cells and tissues to heal and replace damaged ones. Wake Forest was the first to engineer lab-grown organs implanted into humans. Other projects in various stages of development include...