Scientist to CEO Series Features Social Entrepreneur on Nov. 1

David Green

The popular Scientist to CEO speaker series hosted by the UCSF Center for BioEntrepreneurship (CBE) will feature "social entrepreneur" David Green on Tuesday, Nov. 1. Green is founder and executive director of Project Impact, a program dedicated to making medical technology and health care services accessible, affordable, and financially self-sustaining. On Nov. 1, Green will give a talk titled "Bottom of the Pyramid Approaches to Health Care Delivery," which will draw upon his experiences as a social entrepreneur and experiences in what he terms "compassionate capitalism." He will discuss financially self-sustainable paradigms for health services, and financing of global health innovation. Green will speak at 5:30 p.m. in Health Sciences West, room 301, on the Parnassus campus. Refreshments and social hour will start at 5 p.m. The event is free for the UCSF community; $20 otherwise. pre-register here. Green, a MacArthur Fellow, directs the non-profit organization that has successfully transferred technologies to aid blindness prevention and amelioration of hearing loss in developing countries and beyond. Through Project Impact's multi-tiered pricing distribution model, wealthier patients subsidize the patients who pay below cost. Green has already launched systems for the production and distribution of intraocular lenses and surgical sutures, and is pursuing the Affordable Hearing Aid Project. He aims to spread his proven and self-sustaining model of compassionate capitalism to other global healthcare challenges, such as AIDS treatment. Green represents a different kind of entrepreneurship than has been discussed at previous Scientist to CEO lectures. Social entrepreneurship "is about applying practical, innovative and sustainable approaches to benefit society in general, with an emphasis on those who are...poor," explains the Geneva-based Schwab Foundation, which has recognized Green for his work. Social entrepreneurship has a strong appeal in the UCSF community and we will have a lot to learn from David on how he delivered new clinical treatments to developing countries in a financially sustainable way," says CBE Director KT Moortgat, PhD. Scientist to CEO programs have brought other notable speakers to campus including Ed Penhoet, founder and former CEO of Chiron; Pamela Contag, founder and president of Xenogen; Thomas Fogarty, inventor and founder of several companies; and most recently, Rusty Williams, founder and chairman of FivePrime Therapeutics. The speaker series will continue with events in the winter and spring quarters 2005-06. UCSF Global Health Sciences will partner with the UCSF Center for BioEntrepreneurship in this program. Haile Debas, executive director of Global Health Sciences and former UCSF chancellor, will introduce the speaker. The Center for BioEntrepreneurship is dedicated to helping UCSF scientists and clinicians become the next generation of leaders in the life science and healthcare companies, and build value from their research discoveries for public and commercial benefit. Source: Wallace Ravven Links: FivePrime Therapeutics Executive Offers Start-up Advice Center for BioEntrepreneurship