G. Steven Burrill
UCSF’s Center for BioEntrepreneurship is currently accepting applications from faculty and students for an 11-week course focusing on how to launch a successful life sciences business.
The course, “Idea to IPO,” aims to give participants insight into the biotechnology industry and how to formulate and carry out a business plan.
It will run from Jan. 5 to March 16 and will combine group projects, lectures by industry executives and mentoring by venture capitalists. The course is open to 100 aspiring entrepreneurs among the UCSF faculty and student body, including graduate students, postdocs and fellows. The course will meet Mondays from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Mission Bay campus.
The course will be led by G. Steven Burrill, CEO of the life sciences merchant bank Burrill & Company, along with three other company employees. Burrill, who is considered one of the original architects of the biotechnology industry, recently received a prestigious DiNA Award for Lifetime Achievement from the life sciences trade association BayBio.
In addition to Burrill and his team, dozens of industry insiders will serve as guest lecturers. Charles Craik, PhD, a UCSF professor of pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacology, biochemistry and biophysics, will serve as the course’s faculty sponsor.
Key topics in “Idea to IPO” will include attracting financial backers, protecting intellectual property, creating business plans, understanding regulatory issues and conducting market assessments.
The Center for BioEntrepreneurship (CBE), an arm of the UCSF Office of Research, has offered the course since 2001, but it “has been refined over the years to better address students’ interests and needs,” said CBE Director Gail Schechter, PhD.
“We’ve made it jibe with what’s happening in the world of biotechnology, especially by emphasizing the alliance between academics and industry,” she said.
Course participants will form teams around their own innovative technology ideas and will present their products before a panel of venture capitalists at the end of the term.
Winning teams may be eligible for millions of dollars in venture funding, or a $50,000 seed grant from the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), a cooperative effort of UCSF, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.
This unique opportunity goes along with CBE’s mission to help translate discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace, Schechter said.
Pre-registration is required, and can be completed at http://cbe.ucsf.edu/cbe/2500 or by emailing
[email protected]. The registration deadline is Friday, Dec. 12, 2008.
In addition, the entire UCSF community is invited to attend Burrill’s lecture, “State of the Biotech Industry,” scheduled for Jan. 12. The event will take place from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Genentech Hall on the Mission Bay campus, and will be followed by a one-hour reception.
