Technology Transfer Panel
Productive Partnerships in Biomedical Translational Medicine
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Panel: 9:30am - 10:45am; Pacific Heights
Networking Session: 5:00pm - 6:15pm; Pacific Heights
At the crossroads of innovation in biomedical research, translational research partnerships are today increasing in size, complexity, diversity, and challenges in pursuing practical application of research emanating from university inventions.
Primary stakeholders in advancing translational research opportunities will address how they approach the multitude of challenges in moving from an innovative scientific concept to the inception of emerging development-stage companies and new products for the healthcare marketplace.
Moderator
- Craig C. Parker, Advisory Board Member, University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute
Panelists
- Ronald W. Lennox, D.Phil, Partner, CHL Medical Partners
- Mark Crowell, Associate Vice Chancellor for Economic Development and Technology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Katharine Ku, Director of the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), Stanford University
- Elizabeth Thompson, Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Who's Who
Ronald W. Lennox, D.Phil Dr. Lennox is a graduate of the University of Glasgow, Oxford University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has carried out basic biomedical research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, where he was a European Exchange Fellow of the Royal Society of London, at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore and at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia. Prior to joining CHL Medical Partners in 1997, Dr. Lennox was a general partner at Hancock Venture Partners (now HarbourVest Partners) where he invested in sixteen healthcare companies, eleven of which have become public companies. Dr. Lennox has served on the boards of seventeen companies including General Surgical Innovations, Inc., (acquired by Tyco International Corp.), GeneOhm Sciences, Inc. (acquired by Becton Dickinson), and Protometrix, Inc., (acquired by Invitrogen Corp.). He was founding CEO of Protometrix, Inc. as well as CGI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and was formerly Chairman of the Board of Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Lennox currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of OpGen, Inc. and on the boards of BIKAM Pharmaceuticals, Inc., BioRelix, Inc. and POINT Biomedical Corp.
Mark Crowell Mr. Crowell is Associate Vice Chancellor for Economic Development and Technology Transfer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining UNC, he held similar positions at North Carolina State University and at Duke University. He has extensive experience in technology licensing, start-up company formation, seed capital development, and research campus planning. In his UNC role, Mark sits on the Boards of key economic development and entrepreneurial support agencies in North Carolina, including the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, and the Orange County Economic Development Commission. His responsibilities at UNC include the Office of Technology Development, the Office of Economic and Business Development, research campus program planning and business development, industry research, and international research collaboration development.
Mr.Crowell was the 2005 President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) and is President of the newly launched AUTM Foundation. He has extensive national and international speaking, consulting, and management experience related to technology transfer and innovation-based economic development. During the past 2 years, he has made keynote addresses on these subjects at conferences and symposia in Singapore, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, the UK, France, Austria, Russia, Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, Israel, Turkey, the US, and others. His consulting and advisory activities have included a number of US and international academic and policy groups and associations, including the National Governors’ Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National
Academies of Sciences, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (chair, commercialization advisory board) and other numerous international and state government agencies. Mark also serves on the Board of the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership, an initiative coordinated through the National Academies of Sciences designed to expand research and licensing collaborations between universities and industry.
Katharine Ku Ms. Ku is Director of the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) at Stanford University. OTL is responsible for the licensing of various state-of-the-art university technologies and industry sponsored research agreements and collaborations. In fiscal year 2003-2004, OTL received $49.5 Million from the licensing of over 435 different technologies.
From 1994-98, in addition to her OTL responsibilities, Ms. Ku was responsible for Stanford's Sponsored Projects Office, which handled $500M in research contracts and grants. Ms. Ku was Vice President, Business Development at Protein Design Labs, Inc. in Mountain View, California from 1990-1991. Prior to PDL, Ms. Ku spent 12 years at Stanford in various positions, was a researcher at Monsanto and Sigma Chemical, administered a dialysis clinical trial at University of California and taught chemistry and basic engineering courses.
Ms. Ku has been active in the Licensing Executive Society (LES), serving as Vice President, Western Region and Trustee of LES and various committee chairs. She also has served as President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) from 1988-90. She received the AUTM 2001 Bayh-Dole Award for her efforts in university licensing.
Ms. Ku has a B.S. Chemical Engineering (Cornell University), an M.S. in Chem. Eng. (Washington University) and is a registered patent agent.