UCSF Innovation Ventures Autumn News

Autumn Innovation

In this issue, we celebrate the UCSF Health Awards winners and get a peek into the 2021-2022 class of proposals for the Catalyst Awards. Best of luck to all!

And The Winners Are...

Journalist Thuy Vu announces the 2021 UCSF Health Awards winners at UCSFs Mission Bay campus

UCSF Health Awards Make a Big Splash

at Mission Bay

The UCSF Health Awards committee is proud to announce the 20 winning companies and Hall of Fame inductees for the 2021 UCSF Health Awards.

“This year's winning class represented the amazing maturity in and acceleration of health innovation. The winning companies represented 1.6% of the companies that applied, and the overall company submissions across the board were so impressive. Hats off to all of the great companies that submitted applications, progressed to the quarterfinals, the final round, and then won at the Grand Finale,” said Mark H. Goldstein, Chairman of the UCSF Health Hub

For more information about the UCSF Health Awards click the link below:

Health Award for

Best Companies with UCSF DNA

This award is defined as a company using commercial, in-market digital health technology or solutions that either had been started at UCSF or is deeply influenced by a key leadership role held by UCSF faculty or alumni.

Erica Pollex, Digital and Personalized Health Care, Genentech.

Established company with a product in the market:

Genentech

Ken Drazan, Chairman, CEO, & Co-founder, Arsenal Bio.

NewCo up and coming company:

Arsenal Bio

Health Award for

UCSF Hall of Fame

This award is given to three ground-breakers in the health tech space with a focus on founders that broke the mold starting a monumental, innovative new company.

Iyah Romm,

CEO & Co-Founder at Cityblock Health

Deborah Kilpatrick,

CEO & Exec. Board at Evidation Health

Julia Hu,

CEO & Co-Founder at Lark Health

UCSF congratulates the winners and the finalists for their work to advance healthcare and improve patient outcomes through better science and technology.

Next Up: UCSF Catalyst Awards

Catalyst Program Director Charles

Proposals for Catalyst Awards in Review

The Catalyst Program's dedicated Industry Advisor Selection Committee is busy reviewing the most recent batch of proposals for the 2021-2022 Catalyst Awards. Please connect with Catalyst Program Director, Charles Hart, PhD, if you are interested in reviewing proposals in any of the program's tracks, including Therapeutics, Diagnostics, Medical Devices, Digital Health, and Biotools.

Genentech Hall at UCSF Mission Bay Campus

2020-2021 Catalyst Awards Complete

the "Target Product Profile" Step

In 2019 the Catalyst Program added the creation of a Target Product Profile (“TPP”) to the year's activity cycle to help advance the awarded projects along the translational pathway. This summer 60 interns from UCSF, UC Berkeley, UC Hastings, Stanford, and San Francisco State University helped the 2020-2021 Catalyst Awardee Project Teams create a TPP for their projects. Additionally, both project teams and interns attended workshops on the role of the TPP in translational studies, the importance of the TPP for product development and commercialization, Project Management, Intellectual Property, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, as well as an introduction to company formation. Special thanks to guest lecturers Ken Fang, MD, Erica Pascal, PhD, JD, and James Huie, JD! To conclude this phase of the TPP process, last month project teams presented the TPP and a project update to assembled industry advisors for additional feedback.

Catalyst Progam Alumni in the News

Hani Goodarzi Awarded Prestigious Vilcek Prize

Harrington Innovator-Scholar Award

Catalyst Awardee Hani Goodarzi, PhD received the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for using modeling and computational methods to uncover novel molecular players and pathways and therapeutic targets in cancer metastasis and for developing sophisticated molecular tools for the early detection and monitoring of cancer.

Jennifer Chen, MD and John Chorba, MD, two UCSF Catalyst awardees, won the 2021 Harrington Innovator-Scholar Award for their projects Reversing Liver Fibrosis and A Novel Treatment for Atherosclerosis respectively that also won them their Catalyst Awards. The Harrington Scholar-Innovator Award recognizes physician-scientist innovators throughout the US and Canada, whose research has the potential to change standard of care.

The Kidney Project Promises to Free Patients from Transplant Waits and Dialysis Machines

Credit: UCSF

The Kidney Project’s bioartificial kidney, which was successfully implanted in a preclinical model.

The Kidney Project, a nationwide collaboration led by Catalyst Awardee Shuvo Roy, PhD, took another big step toward becoming reality, earning a $650,000 prize from KidneyX for its first-ever demonstration of a functional prototype of its implantable artificial kidney.

Ida Sim, MD, PhD

Catalyst Awardee Ida Sim to Lead Join Program in Computational Precision Health

Catalyst Awardee Ida Sim, MD, PhD will lead the new groundbreaking joint program between UCSF and UC Berkeley in Computational Precision Health, to be housed at the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute at UCSF and the Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society at UC Berkeley. Professor Sim is the director of Digital Health in the Division of General Internal Medicine, and professor of medicine at UCSF. A recognized leader in this field, she is co-founder of Open mHealth and co-founder of Vivli, two not-for-profit entities dedicated to furthering computational precision health.

Advisor Spotlight: John Jacobsen

John Jacobsen, PhD

Catalyst Advisor John Jacobsen, PhD, is the Chief Scientific Officer for DICE Therapeutics, a biotech company that designs and develops innovative therapies in immunology for patients with chronic diseases and recently went public. The funds raised in DICE's IPO support the development of oral drugs that could compete against biologic drugs that are injected or infused.

Join the Innovation Ventures Team!

The Catalyst Program and Innovation Ventures Philanthropy Fund (InVent Fund) is hiring for a Program Analyst. This exciting role will be involved with cutting-edge translational science projects and help advance projects along the translational pathway to commercialization and patent benefit. Please contact Roopa Ramamoorthi, PhD, PMP, for more details.