Associate Director

Job Function Summary:

Involves advising on intellectual property (IP) rights protection, business startup and other technology transfer related issues. Evaluates the commercial potential of research results, obtains and manages the appropriate IP rights protection, markets inventions and software, and / or biological / tangible materials; drafts and negotiates, and manages IP licenses and Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs), Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), and advises on IP terms in research and collaboration agreements. Supports companies who wish to sponsor research and / or license technologies. Facilitates administration of federal and state laws regarding research, conflict of interest, IP, contracts and employment. Works with outside patent attorneys to file patent applications.

Custom Scope:

Working under the supervision of the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Business Development, Innovation and Partnerships the person in this role uses partnering experience in the development and implementation of new strategic alliances, business development initiatives and dedicated alliance management. Works with academic leadership to map internal research programs against external commercial opportunities.

Responsible the entire partnership lifecycle, from business outreach strategy to novel deal “models”, deal-making process, post-deal management and meeting contractual obligations. Takes a leadership role on seminal, large scale industry partnerships, particularly those that encompass responsibilities across the units, as well as high profile, high risk.

The Associate Director uses skills as a seasoned, experienced partnering professional with a full understanding of industry practices and organization policies and procedures to resolve a wide range of issues. Has a deep knowledge of industrial R&D, from translating discoveries into monetizing opportunities with commercial applications and potential for generating licensing revenue streams for UCSF. Understands both the evolving scientific and industry trends.

The Associate Director ensures the applications of alliance management “best practices” across broad collaborative partnerships. This includes proactively assessing risk to establish systems and procedures to protect organizational assets, ensuring that consistent processes for maintaining the overall “health” of the collaborative environment, ensuring contractual and IP and milestone obligations are met, including facilitation of disputes and fostering transparency and maintaining communication between stakeholders at UCSF and partners. Taken together, the end goal is to ensure value-ROI for the collaborating parties.

The Associate Director identifies and incorporates workflow and cost improvement efficiencies at UCSF by partnering with leadership in different parts of the organization.

Specifically, the individual is responsible for:

1. Leadership Team: The Associate Director will be a key part of the HealthTech Commercialization function, from conceiving strategies to the tactical implementation across the group for success. They will oversee process improvement change efforts and will communicate with campus leadership.

2. Partnering Strategies. The Associate Director defines the direction of strategic partnering at the campus level. They will lead goal setting for the function and implement measurable key performance indicators for year-to-year comparators.

3. Portfolio Technology Prioritization.  As part of identifying “promising” technologies to prioritize, leverages their scientific and technology expertise to determine the important features of a technology, a path to generate products/services with external partner as part of co-development.

4. Startup Company Development and Equity Management.  Based on the campus research development goals, designs strategic business development plans, incorporating revenue goals and implementing a roadmap for industry alliances. Drives development workflow ensuring externally facing aspects are of high quality, such as the presentation of technology opportunities to companies and engaging with executives, business development professionals to secure commercial development partners to translate UCSF technologies into products or services.  Success is determined by number of new strategic partnerships, deal valuation in committed dollar funding, number of projects in the portfolio on a per annum basis.

5. Ongoing relationships.  Nurtures relationships with both faculty innovator and the external investor community to drive product commercialization with the appropriate partners to maximize opportunities for success.
6. Identifies, develops and completes internal development projects:  The role also involves creating and implementing value added projects that contribute to the overall development of the team(s).

Can work without direct supervision and can deal with a variety of different technologies and market variations / uncertainty. Capacity to delegate work and to work in teams to achieve the most efficient use of time, resource and knowledge. 

Department Overview:

UC San Francisco (UCSF) Innovation Ventures strives to translate our scientific discoveries for public use and benefit. Whether it’s a new drug molecule, diagnostic, medical device or digital health application, our goal is to ensure the best new therapies and technologies can make their way to the patient as efficiently and safely as possible. 

UCSF Innovation Ventures is comprised of multiple groups specializing in business development, intellectual property, licensing and entrepreneurship. As part of Innovation Ventures, the HealthTech Commercialization (HTC) team is responsible for administering and managing all of UCSF’s intellectual property, transferring and commercializing campus technologies for public use and benefit, and generating technology license income for research and education. 

This work includes implementing the University of California Patent and Copyright Policies, educating the campus community about intellectual property and tangible research property management, evaluating campus inventions for commercial promise, transferring proprietary research materials from the campus to end-users in the public and private sectors, securing the appropriate intellectual property protection for university technologies, marketing campus intellectual property to industry and investors, establishing the value of campus technologies, negotiating and drafting the appropriate license agreements to transfer these technologies to commercial developers, facilitating the formation of new companies based on UCSF technologies, monitoring existing licensees for compliance, and distributing resulting license income to joint owners, the inventors and the campus. 

In addition, the HTC structures and negotiates strategic research partnerships, including structuring, drafting and negotiating research collaboration and digital health product co-development agreements. HTC also negotiates and approves intellectual property and licensing terms incorporated within all categories of both non-profit and industry sponsored research agreements, provides intellectual property advice as needed to other Innovation Ventures staff, the Office of the Campus Counsel, the Office of Sponsored Research, Supply Chain Management, and any other UCSF administrative unit in need of its intellectual property and business expertise. HTC works in concert with the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) and other UC campus technology transfer offices to further the system-wide goals of the University of California’s technology transfer program.