Lynch Accepted Into National Drug Abuse Program for Innovators at Johns Hopkins

Supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the entrepreneurship education program is intended for participants to move their research ideas from the lab to the marketplace.

Lynch, who founded and serves as chief medical officer of MATTERS (Medication for Addiction Treatment and Electronic Referrals), is one of 30 academic researchers invited to participate in this certificate program offered through Johns Hopkins’ Carey Business School.

The success of MATTERS is what led to Lynch’s acceptance into the I4SUD program.

“Dr. Lynch demonstrates an impressive level of dedication and passion not only for the MATTERS program, but also for his work as a physician and an educator,” says Robert F. McCormack, MD, professor and chair of emergency medicine at the Jacobs School. “We are enormously proud of his being chosen to participate in this prestigious national program where he can extend his research even further.”

Lynch, a physician with UBMD Emergency Medicine who also serves as a senior emergency physician with Kaleida Health and medical director of Mercy Flight, has been a national leader in opioid addiction treatment for years.

From working as an emergency medical technician as a college student to serving as a leader on the Erie County Opioid Epidemic Task Force, Lynch understands the importance of finding solutions to what can seem like an intractable problem.

MATTERS, the pioneering, grant-funded organization that began in 2016 as a Buffalo-based electronic referral platform, has blossomed into a multistate program and extensive network with more than 250 treatment organizations, 330 referral sites and 1,000 pharmacies. It facilitates rapid referrals to treatment organizations and addresses barriers patients may encounter by providing transportation vouchers, telemedicine appointments, harm-reduction supplies and 24-hour follow-up services.

Lynch will spend the week of Oct. 20 at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and the remainder of the time in virtual and self-study sessions exploring how to translate research into commercialized plans. The program culminates in a pitch competition in December that will provide the opportunity for participants to compete for a cash prize and receive feedback from expert panels.

“Learning from faculty and colleagues across UB, but primarily at the Jacobs School, along with community leaders in Western New York, gave me the skillset to create a competitive application,” Lynch says. “I’m honored and excited to be part of the I4SUD program.”

Substance use disorders remain critically underfunded despite their widespread societal impact. I4SUD is trying to change that by equipping scientists with the tools, training and mentorship needed to turn groundbreaking research into real-world solutions, according to its website.

“I’m particularly looking forward to learning from the cohort members and the faculty on possible pathways for expansion and growth of MATTERS,” Lynch says. “I believe I can learn from the projects they are working on, challenges they have had and success they have enjoyed.”

Lynch got into addiction medicine after working in the ER and seeing how difficult it was to obtain the help needed for people struggling with substance abuse disorders, he explained during his September interview featured in UB’s Driven to Discover podcast series. It also became personal when two of his family members died from drug overdoses.

He says he knew that physicians needed to deliver better addiction care and patients needed better connections to treatment.

Lynch, in conjunction with UB and UBMD Emergency Medicine, started MATTERS by training physicians to provide medication for addiction treatment right in the ER, which he says hadn’t been done previously on a widespread basis.

“In most emergency departments, if you came in after an overdose, you would either leave because you would wait so long to get cared for, or you would leave with a list of phone numbers for treatment centers that may not be accepting new patients or not take your insurance or discriminate in some other way,” he says.

To combat this second obstacle, Lynch met with treatment organizations to see if they could get people seen within a couple of days of their ER visit and found out that they could.

“That’s how things started to grow in Buffalo,” he says of the program that has since expanded into a network throughout New York State and into New Jersey and Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

“Our vision for MATTERS was to reduce mortality rates for people living with substance use and mental health disorders by linking them to stigma-free treatment and resources so that no matter what stage of readiness they are in, help is always available,” Lynch says. “The need for these services is great and I look forward to elevating and expanding MATTERS in the years to come.”