Drug research institutes put dealmaking on the front burner

Drug research institutes hatch early-stage science, but sometimes promising programs get stuck, or what’s called the valley of death. In response, institutes are getting creative, whether forming nonprofits to accelerate research, striking complex financial deals or ensuring scientists are included in partnerships. This webinar will examine the forces driving the shift and some of the more novel approaches.

Amir Naiberg

Associate Vice Chancellor, CEO and President, Technology Development Group, UCLA, Technology Development Group

Amir Naiberg serves as Associate Vice Chancellor, and President & CEO of UCLA Technology Development Corporation. UCLA Technology Development Group is a campus-wide resource that serves as a Gateway to Innovation, Research and Entrepreneurship at UCLA. Mr. Naiberg’s role includes operational, strategic, and public interfacing responsibilities related to growing and enhancing the areas of intellectual property, technology transfer, industry-sponsored research, and campus innovation and entrepreneurship.

Prior to joining UCLA in August 2016, Mr. Naiberg worked at Yeda Research and Development Co, Ltd., In Rehovot, Israel, the technology transfer company of the Weizmann Institute of Science, ranked as one of the top three technology transfer organizations in the world.

Mr. Naiberg is one of the founders of the Israel Technology Transfer Organization (ITTN), a non-profit organization that unites various technology transfer offices throughout Israel.

Mr. Naiberg holds law degree from the Hebrew University School of Law and LL.M from University of Connecticut School of Law.

Karen H. Hong

Partner, Novo Holdings, Venture Investments

Karen H. Hong, Ph.D., is a Partner with the Venture Investments team at Novo Holdings, bringing more than 25 years of experience in life science investing and biomedical research. Prior to joining Novo Holdings, Dr. Hong was a Senior Investment Director at Takeda Ventures, Inc. and was a Partner at ProQuest Investments. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of StrideBio and Riva Therapeutics, which she incubated, co-founded, and launched in collaboration with the Broad Institute. Additional boards where she has been a Director or Observer include Obsidian Therapeutics, Palleon Pharmaceuticals, Agile Therapeutics, BioRexis Pharmaceutical Corp. (acquired by Pfizer), Gloucester Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Celgene) and LEAD Therapeutics (acquired by BioMarin), among others. Prior to joining ProQuest, Dr. Hong led numerous research projects in the areas of mammalian cancer genetics and genomics in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Lander at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Dr. Hong received a Ph.D. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in molecular biology from the University of California at Berkeley, where she graduated with honors.

Ferran Prat

Senior Vice President, Industry Relations, Research Administration, MD Anderson Cancer Center

Prat helps the faculty and researchers at MD Anderson develop collaborative opportunities with pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostics, imaging, laboratory medicine and other industry partners. Prior to joining MD Anderson, Ferran held a number of industry and academic positions, including vice president, oncology and women’s health at Alere Inc. vice president for licensing at Biosite Inc., management consultant at McKinsey & Co., engineer at Chromogenia- Units and researcher at the University of California – Los Angeles. Prat has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California – Los Angeles and a J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law.

Isy Goldwasser

EIR, The Scripps Research Institute

Isy Goldwasser is an entrepreneur-in-residence at Scripps Research focused on establishing strategic partnerships and clinical-stage ventures on behalf of Scripps. Prior to joining Scripps, Mr. Goldwasser was the founding CEO of Thync Inc. in 2012 and led the company through the development and launch of first-in-kind consumer neuromodulation products. Mr. Goldwasser spent the majority of his career building Symyx Technologies (Nasdaq: SMMX) as a founding employee, President, and then CEO over a period of 16 years. Symyx pioneered the use of high-throughput research within materials science and Mr. Goldwasser established a number of large, strategic partnerships with global corporations that totaled more than $500M in revenues for Symyx. He is a named inventor on more than 40 US, European and Canadian patents and was originally affiliated with Scripps Research as a member of the Board of Directors. Mr. Goldwasser holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from MIT and a MS degree in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University.

Moderator

Jared Whitlock

FEATURES EDITOR, Endpoints News

Jared Whitlock is the features editor at Endpoints. Previously a freelance journalist and MIT knight science journalism fellow in fall 2021, his work has appeared in publications like WIRED, STAT and The New York Times. Prior to this, he was a biotech, healthcare and special projects reporter at The San Diego Business Journal. When not fussing over words, he can be find surfing at various San Diego beaches.