Episode 125| Inside Tech Transfer At UCLA From Patents To Patients

A single university discovery can turn into a life-changing therapy, but only if someone can translate the science into a product, a company, and a development plan investors will actually fund. That is why we sat down with Mark from UCLA’s technology transfer and licensing team to demystify what happens after the lab result and before the biotech headline. We talk plainly about what a tech transfer office does, what it can license, and why “intellectual property” now stretches beyond patents into data, materials, and even carefully governed patient datasets.

We also zoom out to the policy foundation that made modern university commercialization possible: the Bayh-Dole Act. Mark explains how shifting IP ownership from the federal government to universities changed licensing outcomes and helped build the innovation ecosystem we now associate with US leadership in therapeutics. Along the way, we connect the dots to real UCLA impact, including major prostate cancer drugs and a licensed cure for ADA-SCID, and we unpack the tension founders often feel when a faculty inventor becomes a startup founder negotiating with their own campus.

Then we get tactical. We break down why big pharma often waits until risk is reduced, why faculty-led startups become the bridge, and how license strategy changes depending on whether you are building a therapeutic that needs exclusivity or a platform that benefits from nonexclusive access. Mark walks through diligence milestones, annual progress reporting, and the practical reality that most “shelving” is not malicious, it is a startup fighting for survival. If you care about biotech startups, university patents, and the future of the Los Angeles bioscience ecosystem, this conversation is a roadmap.

If this helped you see tech transfer differently, subscribe, share the episode with a founder or researcher, and leave a review telling us what part of the university-to-startup journey you want us to unpack next.

Show notes: coming soon

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Transcript

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Welcome And The Tech Transfer Mystery

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Mark, we're thrilled to have you here to share your insights on navigating the complex intersection of file pharma, intellectual property, and strategic innovation. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Thank you, Jenny. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Well, first of all, where you are, uh technology transfer office is kind of like a mystery to a lot of entrepreneurs. Why don't you share with us what exactly does a technology transfer office does?

What A Tech Transfer Office Licenses

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, that's a great point. I think it's it's really important too because understanding the role of the tech transfer office as a partner in the innovation ecosystem is critical in this day and age because we actually are at the epicenter of really trying to connect academic research to the entrepreneurs and industry and bridge that translational to commercialization pathway. So, in a nutshell, with the tech transfer office, we are the entity on campus with the authority to license all new intellectual property arising out of UCLA. And the reason I state it that way is because when you think of intellectual property, it goes beyond patents because now with AI, especially data is intellectual property. There's materials, there's patient data, which is very valuable, especially in the life science space for therapeutics, diagnostics, and such. And also materials. So really any IP that arises on the university setting, we're the one-stop shop that can license it and hopefully really facilitate its advancement for the betterment of

Bayh-Dole And The Innovation Pivot

SPEAKER_00 2:06

humanity.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah, and also the intro the history of technology transfer office, the existence of this organization is actually kind of interesting. I just learned about it this morning of the the Beido Act of 1980. Do you do you want to talk a little bit about that? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

And it's it's actually Baidol.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Baido.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

With the the two senators. And um, it is from 1980. And what's fascinating is to think, and actually, if you take a a further step back in terms of innovation ecosystems and how they evolve, Baidol was really critical with really catalyzing the US to be the leader in therapeutic innovation since that day. Because if you look back, you know, you can go back to the 1700s with France and Europe and 1800s, Japan. But prior to 1980, the federal government would be the owners and managing all of the new IP coming out of the all the university systems. And now not intending to cast dispersions upon government entities, but just the fact you have one centralized organization tasked with hunt UCLA loan receives 300 to 400 new invention disclosures a year, of which we'll file on a few hundred, multiply that times another 100, that's a lot to manage. So with Fidel, it was really that pivot. It's an inflection point that with granting the authority to the universities to own and manage the IP meant to decentralize to the campuses, the decision-making authority, the investment, building the relationships with the other side of the table, the entrepreneurs, the investors who want to learn about this technology, understand the potential, be able to investigate due diligence, as they call it, and hopefully license it and commercialize it.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Right. I think before the law, the percentage of licensing out of those federally owned IPs is like something like less than five percent.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

It really and you could see the hockey stick go up and and just the magnitude, that inflection point. And also when you see what comes out of universities for for UCLA, for instance, we commercialized two of the top five prostate cancer drugs, Extandi and Early Ada. I licensed a cure for what's called ADA skid, boy in a quote unquote bubble disease, or or child in a bubble disease a year ago from Dr. Donald Cohn's lab. And so those type of significant, just just impactful events that can that really have helped you humanity, over a million people have been treated with those, men have been treated with those prostate cancer drugs, really was the result of Baidole empowering the universities to have that authority and then over the decades become much more sophisticated with the licensing and building the ecosystems on campus to help catalyze these type of significant uh events.

Mark’s Chess Like Career Path

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Right. And well, let's unwind a little bit of to focus on you a little bit, Mark. Uh you were trained as a immunologist. And then you decided somewhere to cross over to the business side. You want to walk us a little bit on that? And how did you end up in your current role, basically?

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah, it's interesting. Uh I grew up as a chess player, and so I always like to sort of caveat, I think, in terms of chess strategy and stuff. And what I mean by that is with chess, it's sort of chance favors the prepared. When you build a position, there comes a point that's like, oh, you have a beautiful, overwhelming attack to win and things like that. So when I now when I convey that in terms of my career path, immunology was because I was good at biology, it was great. It was an opportunity. I grew up in Chicago, it was great. I got to come to UCLA and really uh explore and and receive a graduate degree, a master's degree in immunology and immunobiology and sorry, microbiology. But I realized at that point that when I was on this pursuit in in graduate school, I was much more application driven. And so the thought of spending five, six years in a PhD, hey, that's great. There's a lot of people who are that, but I was much more like, all right, I want to figure out how to apply this. And so after the master's degree, I was fortunate enough to be able to join Baxter Healthcare and work in a lab as a scientist working on development of therapeutics. And that was a great experience because it was basically going from the academic mindset to now the application of it. But with that led to, well, the scientific projects are going well, but they're being canceled. Why? And that sort of led to, oh, if I get my MBA, I'll understand the business drivers that were doing it. So each step of the way really informed this path, almost like again, playing a game of chess, trying to figure out each move. So the master's degree led to being in the lab. The MBA led to moving into management at Baxter Healthcare, where I'd worked where I worked on strategy, business development, and marketing. But then at some point, it's like, okay, it's corporate. Let me try the entrepreneurial side. And that's what led to when you mentioned I worked with NAH programs through the LARDA Institute in LA, advising startups and then also leading my own startup formation, which led to joining Prolactive Bioscience because there was a team of colleagues from Baxter Healthcare prior to that. And so each step of the way then led to this moment of like, I'm a double alum from UCLA, and this position opened up in tech transfer to lead biopharmaceutical licensing. And so I joined that nine years ago, and I realized probably five years into it, there was like the accumulation of experience and knowledge led to not only my role but my perspective on this because I feel like I've been on multiple sides of the table that has informed different stakeholders' perspectives, thinking, which I think which is so critical to this role, because it goes back to with BIDO and the tech transfer office. If you really understand that our mission and vision is to empower the faculty who make these discoveries as new inventors

Why Faculty Startups Lead Licensing

SPEAKER_00 8:10

to help them understand filing patents, what IP, the underlying power and potential of IP, startup formation, and what's what all those pieces that are involved, because on a side note, most of our licenses that originate of UCLA are to faculty-led startups. Because we have such early stage technology, many times the end buyer, like the pharma company, and again it's sort of irrespective of industry now, whether it's physical science or life sciences, they're not going to license directly from the university because it's too early stage, it's too risky. They'd rather buy from a successful startup and pay a premium when they know it's close to marketplace. So then what happens is, as mentioned, a faculty member will file a new invention disclosure and will receive $400 a year. And if the more majority of those are to faculty-led startups because there's no one licensing yet, and they're like, wait, this is great, this is a potential for a cure, this can really be significant. Then the challenge is how do you educate and empower that faculty member to form a startup company which they've never done before to put them in a position for success. Because what's happened is though, we'll uh and this going a little bit down the rabbit hole, but what happens is we worked with the faculty as agents for the university on filing their IP. Then they want to start a company because they know that's the best way to get this to benefit to the market to benefit humanity. So all of a sudden, they're on the other side of the table because they're negotiating the license with us. And typically 99% of the time, it's not the faculty member, it's it's management or something, an investor. But even at that point when they've disclosed to us and they're first learning about intellectual property, now they have to figure out how to start a company, bring in management, raise funding, and you want to give this startup a chance of success, but with each each area I just mentioned, there's a significant risk factor now because they're doing it for the first time. You want technology to fail on its own merits, right? Good or bad. Not because you brought in the wrong management team, you didn't raise the right funding, you didn't design the right study, and you're left, okay, we're out of money, most things fail, but did it fail for the right reasons? So within this role, and actually now I'm sort of forgetting the original question because I went so far down the rabbit hole, but because of my collective experience of understanding from the pharma side, the startup side, and all that stuff, and seeing the risk factors that many times have nothing to do with the inherent technology itself. My view is with the tech transfer office, we're here to help nurture and put them in a position for success. Because again, most early stage tech fails, but you want to make sure that tech succeeds or fails on its own merits, not because of one of these things I just described with starting a company.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Well, the things that you described are actually very critical for the success of a company. And and I think to recap what you just said, you were a test player and now you want to teach your games to all the new entrepreneurs to teach them how to play the game better in a way to have strategies. So describe a typical day for you. Do you just review all the new inventions on a daily basis? Or do you actually handhold entrepreneurs to build their funding team? I mean, how how much help do you actually does the office help?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

It's that's a great question because spinning plates multitasking is critical. Because what you see, and this this was also a difference with uh between industry and academia, with industry, because their mantra is revenue product, like there's specific metric, milestones and metrics that they need to meet, it can be very laser focused, led by, of course, the CEO and board directors and such. With the university setting, because it is much more a Senate formation consensus, that type of collaborative nature, you there's a collective of priorities that you're trying to balance at any one time. So when you think across the value chain of our being representatives of the university, our two major clients are the faculty and industry. And we're trying to again bridge that gap, which typically the the milestone is licensing IP. So that means we work with faculty because when they have research, we're partnering with them to say, okay, with your research, where where can it become patentable? Like some of the um requirements for patentability, like utility, non-obviousness, and such like that to inform them. Then once they file a patent, we work with them and our IP attorneys on actually filing the patent. Then we market and reach out to industry to market the invention for licensing. Then we actually negotiate the license. And then once it becomes a startup, it's more on the compliance aspect that make sure that the terms of the agreement are met. So really across the spectrum of the value chain from faculty to patents to startups and industry, we're trying to balance those each and every day.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

And so

Exclusive Versus Nonexclusive License Strategy

SPEAKER_02 13:10

these licenses sometimes can be for the startups to fund the company, but other times it are licensed to industries, are they exclusive, non-exclusive exclusive? It's kind of hard to have all of them at the same time, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

It is. And quite frankly, uh there's different buckets. So for instance, with a therapeutic, those are always exclusive because if you're investing a billion dollars for a therapeutic drug, you're not going to want a competitor in that space. But if it's a platform, CRISPR, many drug discovery, then by definition you really want them to be non-exclusive for the collective good. And many times it's also recognized from the industry side. But really with when it comes to the licensing discussion, one of the most critical aspects is understanding with that licensee, okay, what is your business model and how do we align the business terms for success? Because sometimes licensees will come in and be like, I need it all. I need to have everything. And it's like, okay, wait, well, you can't invest in everything, so let's work with this because sometimes they'll come back and be like, okay, it's this is our priority, let's say the area of cancer, but autoimmune disease might be something that depending on how the development progresses might inform to say, oh, this therapeutic might have better potential and it's autoimmune than cancer. So the middle ground might be like, okay, well, you have exclusive rights to cancer, but with autoimmune, it might be time limited, let's say. Because we really do have this sort of use it or lose it mantra, and that we might align because we understand from industry that you need to have rights in order to raise investment to even take it forward. But at the same time, um, the one thing we have to avoid, or one thing we have to ensure is that this does have the best chance of being commercialized for benefit to humanity without it being shelved for anti-competitive practices.

Preventing IP Shelving With Diligence

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Yeah, I think you touched upon a very important concept that we were planning to talk about a little bit later, but I think we can talk about now, which is IP culture shelved, which means they just sat idle after the licensing occurred and not benefiting anybody. And you are emphasizing that it's very important for you to include that in your contract in these deals to make sure the IPs are actually being utilized. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yes. That is one of our mantras of TechFancer, is most research is tax fair funded research. And even if it's not donors, foundations, or such, but everyone collectively agrees we want this to reach the marketplace. That's why we're providing money for this research grant funding. So within this, we have diligence terms that again will work with the startup to align to say, okay, if you're developing a cancer drug, there's preclinical phase, there's clinical phase. How do we agree that you are making progress while understanding that there's caveats that, yeah, research is inherently risky. So there's caveats such that if it's on hold because of the FDA, okay, you can provide documentation to show that that would pause the clock. But fundamentally, the worst thing you want to do, especially and just thinking through, it's typically every two years we're checking in. Because if it's five years and sometimes like, oh, that's a lot of time to put it on the shelf, quote unquote, to test other things while you're not technically in violation of the contract, but not in the spirit of actively trying to develop it. And the flip side of that is having the empathy and understanding that with early stage startups, fundraising takes time, finding management, incubator space, you have to get contract research organized. Like all these things need to be done in parallel, and it takes time to do those things. But I think the good news is one thing I'd really like to do is have an initial discussion with the licensee just to sort of set the table of we're not your competitor. We actually are aligned. So even though tech transfer offices can sometimes have not a negative connotation, but sort of can be sort of a bureaucratic and such. Yes. When you when you really from again, we're part of the bureaucratic university, I get that, blame me. But when you look at the spirit of it, we're not here to take back the IP. Because if you look at the way the innovation ecosystem works, if we're receiving 300, 400 new invention disclosures every year and we're investing in them in over a five to seven year time frame, it's like a conveyor belt. There's sort of a use it or lose it. And also with a 20-year patent clock, most tech that's 10 years old is not gonna get licensed because it's gonna take another five or six minimum to get to the marketplace. So by definition, we're lying because if it's not licensed within the three to five year time frame after patenting it, filing the patent, then it's most likely gonna need to be die pruned. So similarly, when we license it to a company, we're like, hallelujah, one thing off of our plate, they're paying back the patent expenses that were invested, which goes back to our budget. So just having that type of alignment discussion up front can sometimes put them at ease at saying, like, look, there's requirements within our licenses that are non-negotiable, but in that same sort of mantra of we need to make sure you're in the spirit of developing this towards the marketplace and not shelving, then you can have an open discussion, hopefully find alignment. What does that diligent schedule for development milestones look like?

SPEAKER_02 18:24

So do you checking every two years? And if I'm a startup and I haven't met your milestone, what is that conversation going to be like? Do I need to show you actual plan of making it happen or how how do I mitigate my delay?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Sure. Well, what's standard in our contract are annual progress reports. So every year it's a requirement to say, okay, based on your milestones and other things, like if there's patent pay patent fees, expenses, that what is your progress and what's your status as far as the company with developing this this technology? But it's very common for us to amend licenses because again, when we're going into this, it's meant to be a good faith negotiation of saying we understand most of the time you're a startup and you're trying to figure this out. So let's put an initial plan in place, but then we can course correct based on the reality of the situation. So for instance, when COVID hit and biotech had a boom period, and then conversely biotech had a bust two years later, we were nego renegotiating many types of licenses. But I think really the uh the underlying fact, unfortunately, is that most startups do fail. So if they're coming back to us, it's because of funding issues. And they're trying to figure out, okay, how do we keep the lights on? How do we do X, Y, and Z? And so when it comes to like all this shelving and all that stuff, many times it's like, okay, they're trying to just get their feet under them with their lab, paying their lab, paying patent costs and such. And we're working with them on more fundamental problems of like, okay, we invested 50,000 in patent fees before you formed your company. We can negotiate a payment fee schedule with you that aligns with your investors' expectation for development while also paying off those debts. But it many times it's just more fundamental to their survival than anything like draconian, like, yeah, they've got 10 other things on the marketplace and want to shelve ours.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

What you're describing is probably the more, I would say, intuitive, common scenario, but there are also other types of shelving, as you know, the intentional competitive behavior. How has that ever come across your plate? And how do you deal with it if that happens?

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Well, truthfully, in in my almost 10 years at TDG, I can think of one one example. And it was sort of like, okay, we had to sit on our hands for a couple of years. So it wasn't and in the end, it it didn't turn out to be anything material. It didn't make it right, but fortunately, it wasn't something like that a treatment for a patient or something of that nature. But I think the benefit of being in biopharmaceuticals unlike some other platforms, and maybe it's more with tech, is that if you really are investing in a therapeutic and you have all that capital that has to be raised, it's hard for a startup to do multiple things at a time. And so more often than not, they won't shelb it. They'll actually uh terminate the license because they're responsible for paying the patent costs once they once they sign the agreement. And they'll be looking at their book saying, wait, okay, if this is the lead horse now and we have a hundred thousand dollars in patent expenses for this, why would we how can we justify having a portfolio

UCLA’s Scale Startups And Proximity Effect

SPEAKER_00 21:40

and adding to our expense hundreds of thousands? So many times they're just like, no, we can't afford this, so we'll just abandon the license.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Now, a little bit of self-disclosure. I'm also a true broom at heart. I went to undergrad, med school, residency, all at UCLA, so decades there. So I'd love to hear a little bit. on the stats from the UCLA TDG, because I know you mentioned several times that you have three to four hundred invention disclosure every year. What are some of the uh numbers that you can share with the public from from your office?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Being a double Bruin, Bruin alum like you, triple yes, there go Bruins. I didn't have an appreciation for the the magnitude and the wealth and the success metrics for our innovation ecosystem. And fundamental to that, this goes back to we we had a a consultant on years ago during COVID who had actually did analysis of innovation ecosystems all the way back to Florence versus Siena, Italy, back in the Middle Ages. And when you understand that by definition you can only have a handful of these because what happens and this goes sort of back to the chess playing or when you think about startup venture creation, it's parallel processes that you need to have a critical mass and proximity effect occurring simultaneously for success. That if you look at Boston and San Francisco for biotech, everything's in walking distance. You have the pharma you have the investors the the venture capital you have the great institutions. What's nice is UCLA has it all on its campus. Now that's not to say UCLA of course is Boston or San Francisco, but it has its own proximity effect because you have the hospital across the street from School of Engineering next to School of Medicine and our Magnify Incubator which is home to all of our biopharma startups is on campus. So a clinician can treat patients during day go to the lab in the afternoon go to their startup at night that's the proximity effect you need. And so from that fundamental then you add in general UCLA receives over $1.5 billion in federal grants to the School of Medicine every year, which results in 300 to 400 invention disclosures. We this is sort of going up to the biotech downturn but we typically were top five in startup formation annually about two dozen startups. And if you look and what's interesting too with being in tech transfer you learn that there's based on these based on these fundamental criteria of the grant funding and the size and the invention disclosures there's certain comps like Stanford Michigan Florida that sort of align as compared to others that might be smaller schools. And so that's where we are on par but having said that with innovation I always look at it chance favors the prepared and that just goes back to my when I talked about my day job of empowering the faculty and by the way I think it's still the case that LA produces the most most PhDs in the country too. So when you look at UCLA LA state of California the opportunity to train and retain the talent pool which now has this voracious appetite for entrepreneurship was exciting because like what we're doing now who was doing a podcast back in the 90s right or or the thing that you can be an influencer in your teens we're training undergrads helping them write business plans grad students because the more they can think about innovation, the more they can be prepared to do their startup. And so going back to when you talked about the success metrics for UCLA, besides the number of startups that have come out every year, when you look at the fact we've licensed a cure for ADA skid, we've got two of the top five prostate cancer drugs. Dr. Dennis Sleyman's listed as Forbes number 52 inventor in US history because of her septin and now he is Toro biotherapeutics. We have a powerhouse of potential on our campus because of the inherent nature of UCLA and also the fact that having a tech transfer office that is one stop shop for IP and Amir Neidberg who's our CEO he recognizes that it's a win-win when you're bundling all of the IP to license to a startup. And what I mean by that is when during my initial discussions with the startup one of the first things I'll ask him is like okay you want this patent but what's the breadth of IP that you want to license because we can license data. We have a committee for patient data because there's rightfully sensitivity about that. But if this technology has been in the clinic and there's patient data that's available for licensing, if there's underlying data, protocols, repositories, things that can complement and actually put the position the startup in a position for success, better success, we want to do that because it's also win-win in terms of like okay we're not just bundling a single patent we have a breadth of IP that we can work with you on to ensure the startup has it that again aligns with policy procedures protocols that we can discuss with them. But then it also allows us for UCLA to benefit for better consideration because for instance with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which is state funded $12 billion entity that our researchers will receive five, $10 million

Tech Transfer As Long Term Investment

SPEAKER_00 27:00

to advance their technology into the clinic, that makes it much more inherently valuable, de-risked, and puts the tech transfer office and UCLA in a better negotiating position that the startup will understand because they're in a better position having a clinical stage asset as an example than something that's much more nascent.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Yeah I mean if you talk to an average person about technology transfer office, what comes in mind is money. This is how university makes money from their research. But what impressed me during this conversation this short conversation with you is that you mentioned benefiting the humanity a lot more times than I expected. It seems like the office really is aiming more for more impact than economics. I did a very brief research comparing UTLA Stanford and Harvard all three are my favorite institutes and actually I was surprised to find that the revenue in a startup formation that you mentioned actually comparable to Harvard. I think they also do like two dozens per year or something like that. And the revenue they bring from licensing is about $50 to $60 million a year. I think you still they say two dozen per year and revenue is around $50 to $60 million a year is standard slightly more but still it's not like dramatically 10 times more. So interesting to to hear that the economics do you think technology trans profits is a is a honeypot for universities to make money?

SPEAKER_00 28:31

I think so but I think and this is great this is this goes back to the rebranding that I think is critical. One with when you mentioned the Harvard Stanford UCLA's Michigan goes to me I without a doubt that there should be an in a recognition that it's an investment thesis not a cost center. And what I mean is like if with early stage technology then again we're upstage of venture capital. So if you understand the basic venture capital model they invest in 10 entities half half of them will fail four will break even and one will generate the return and they're doing diligence on what they're investing in is much more advanced typically than the portfolios we have. We'll do a few VC deals but again we're here to serve the university which means it's hard for us and we shouldn't be saying no to faculty. Even if it's on the educational side it's early too early stage but VCs have an obligation to their their in their investors their LPs for a return but the reason I'm saying that is because we have a much larger portfolio and so while there's cost and patent costs precede the return just by the nature of in the innovation research innovation development it's clumpy. So for instance in 2016 UCLA sold its 4% royalty in those two prostate cancer drugs for $1.2 billion dollars that reinvested into the university was invested in scholarship funds and other ways to again help catalyze the university and also I would argue help change the culture because it was like wow you can do well by doing good. So going back to your earlier statement thank you about focusing on patients I always think in terms of patient benefit first because if you start with that then you can follow what's morally ethically monetarily correct to try and find the balance because again with extendi of course there's arguments about drug pricing and such but in the role of the university where it's meant to can you advance this innovation to help patients first then the economics follow by doing the right license whereby everybody wins right rising tide lifts all boats. It can reinvest into the university and then we have an organization place. By the way UCLA TDG has a board of directors that's mandated to be primarily from the commercial side so we have this great group of individuals who have industry experience, networks, expertise and we also have the deans from the university to help make informed decisions because what we do is complex. There's inherent conflicts of interest but when I always say if you start with the patient that leads you to okay I can defend my decision because you're trying to help patients first. And then going back to the investment thesis, you're not going to see a year by year return like with the VC. You're not looking at the book saying okay year one year no it's like the collective 10 year period of a VC but by definition universities are evergreen. So when you look at the pens, the Stanfords, the Harvards, UCLA do have enough of those clumpy and clumpy and a positive the extandees, the Herceptin, the you mean for patient benefit, the monetary return and such and if you set up your license correctly now and this this goes back to all the way back to the buy dole, it probably took a get good 10, 15 years for university to understand how to accept equity. Because in one thing is this the other thing I'll tell the startup is like we just want a small piece across the value chain. Because it's just good business practice. If you don't take a piece of equity in the startup they'll sell their startup for all equity because they're not they don't have to pay out to the university. But I always ask them how many startups have failed because of the tech transfer license versus poor management, poorly designed clinical studies or insufficient fundraising. There's a whole whole litany reasons before you ever get to the tech transfer license. Not say that there weren't bad agreements but what I'm saying is holistically now we've set ourselves up in this chess game of saying you're an innovation ecosystem, you recognize who the players are from the faculty the industry, you're empowering the faculty who are the serial entrepreneurs, the next generation of our talent pool who love doing this and they can be mentored not only by our faculty, by our board of directors, by industry, because they can either get industry jobs or be the next generation of entrepreneurs you're structuring it to license the breadth of IP into that startup that has seasoned management, smart money from VCs, because the VCs will come to you because they know what you're doing, quote unquote, their success. Then by the time it gets to the market, you've had startups that have exited hopefully then humanity's benefit and now you have the full life cycle because the feedback will be everybody comes back to the university to do the next startup because they've had success.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Yeah what you're describing is like super long-term vision investment. I mean I would say in terms of measuring the the metrics is going to be 10, 20 years. Have that metric or the metrics evolve over the decade that you were with TDG so far?

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Like what were you looking before and now is different? Well and it's also the evolution of tech transfer because there have been a metric and again I think it's just the nature of the beast of when you look at everything I just described from number of invention disclosures, patents issued, patents received, startup formation you see where if there's groups that will be like all right we'll provide seed money to startups that's a metric. Is it a good metric? It's arguable, but in my mind it's part of that evolution of you're measuring metrics along the way from inception to invention to translation to startup to exit. I would argue startup formation's one part of it, but the robust startups now especially in biotech the ones that have the $50 to $100 million rays with the serial entrepreneurs that are savvy, have multiple invent like we have Ari Beldeg Dr. Ari Beldegrun who's has at least six exits and he's in our loves UCLA, he's at our LE best event every year. But those are the individuals that directly catalyze the innovation ecosystem. And so when you say those type of metrics, it's debatable and I think it's healthy just to monitor across the value chain. But what's fascinating is when you say long term, I don't know because I think there's so much untapped potential and you can almost invert it and say if you look at a Harvard or a university and again not saying these examples but when you have this is dating me but I go back to the Beverly Hillbillies where they were just hunting and all of a sudden the oil came up when all of a sudden you empower these individuals who have the credibility of UCLA, a Caltech, a Harvard, the untapped potential UCLA Harvard, the top two hardest universities to get in of course Stanford too how much potential do untapped potential does our network and Talentpool have that a little IP training, mentorship and putting him in a position for success could be catalytic, not a long-term linear and that's why I think we're seeing because if you Google Pollage Pharma, Toro Biotherapeutics, now Lyel that used to be impact, and you see where they are potentially close to these liquidity events, whether it's IPO or late stage clinic and the amount that those could be could you imagine forming the next AMGin in LA from one of those, what that would look like that's right, look how quickly Boston evolved into a biotech. So when you say that I don't disagree but I think if there's if it's a pressure cooker of all these fundamentals that have not been aligned for the synergy and scale and direction and vision, those are the ones that you can see popping out very quickly for success.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

To be honest, I would love for Los Angeles to be the center of biotech.

LA BEST And Building Biotech In LA

SPEAKER_02 36:40

I know the ambition has always been there from tax break policies to institutional organizational support. And you actually organize a summit every year now called Lab Vest or Lab Best or Libest.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yeah that's the spell what does it stand for by the way Los Angeles Bioscience Ecosystem Summit and the T, who's actually our finance director Christ Kristen Robertson I went like I can't figure out this T. She's like 2023, 2024. I'm like that's perfect because this will not be dated until I think the T is it 2400? I can't remember but it's hundreds of years by definition.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Yeah what does it do? What is this event and what kind of goal do you want to achieve?

SPEAKER_00 37:26

So this really is benchmarked in trying to mimic the JP Morgan healthcare event in San Francisco on a smaller scale though because we do ours at the lovely Luskin Center with the terrace that overlooks the practice football field. So it is a very much more LA so with LA Best when I joined TDG it was very opportunistic that Ari Beldegrin had just sold kite for $12 billion and and they stayed in LA and we happened to meet with Amgen, their CEO Robert Bradway and what came out of it was we should have a life science event at UCLA. And so it sort of struck me and and again this sort of my chess playing is I always like having working with teams iteratively to figure out what the answer should be. But it struck me that at that point LA seemed very much like a flyover city between San Diego and San Francisco which again rightfully leaders in biotech it's Pan California that's great. But we can do better. And so just seeing and going back to if I didn't appreciate the breadth and depth of innovation coming out of UCLA being a double Bruin speaking to a triple Bruin, how many people just in the locale let alone through California and what is the opportunity as a JP asked of saying I want to begin by credibly having an event that across the value chain will showcase research faculty who are serial entrepreneurs, startups, or even evolving ecosystems. We've been fortunate now with the UCLA Research Park with the C3I, the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, the vision for West LA in the future to showcase those at our event because I want to lay out this buffet or menu for people who it's challenging enough to navigate UCLA Leno LA. So if you orchestrate this event across the value chain and then have the opportunity to bring in USC, Caltech, City of Hope and others for one stop shopping, then all of a sudden your matchmaking and chance favors are prepared by providing all these incredible, credible individuals to meet their peers and other stakeholders that you need to drive this innovation ecosystem. And so it's it evolved from one day to now pretty much a full week towards the end of May.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

It sounds actually quite amazing just just listening to the lineup. And plus it's my home institute and favorite hotel. So

The Future Beyond “Tech Transfer”

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Mark we reached the end of this uh interview what do you have to say about the future of your work, science, innovation?

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Thank you. Yeah the future's bright I believe in people and what I mean is the talent pool is just incredible and the untapped potential. And also I look forward to this evolution because I firmly believe that some of these happening dated words like tech transfer, it doesn't truly reflect how the innovation ecosystems evolved and the powerful role for the universities to really be a driving force of innovation as a partner with industry.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Right. It sounds more like accelerator in a way right you guys are playing the role of accelerator.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Accelerated and hopefully catalytic when you read books on it when you and and it just when you think about it, just in my nine years something seeing some of our faculty entrepreneurs go from newbies to now this is a third company and seeing their personal development and sophistication and understanding and the credibility that's associated with that. This is why it's always so much easier for an entrepreneur to fundraise with experience. How do you teach that as a paper exercise? That's what this exposure immersion can take place on our campuses to really be a multiplier factor through the faculty, through the talent pool which will attract the investors and again that's why I think it's catalytic and the future is bright. And the last thing I'll say is so many entrepreneurs are saying my success was not driven by the business plan that I thought it was. Because if you come in with a solution focused mindset of saying oh my God look at this university they have clinical samples they have repositories they patient did they have all this stuff with AI and I'll if you look at that what's the potential solution many times then it leads you away from the dogma okay I've got one drug I'm gonna go cure Alzheimer's and you've just added all those risk factors which again not blame or shame but it's expanding and changing this perspective that many times singles are will lead to the unexpected home runs that only a serial entrepreneur can understand. And that's what we're trying to culturally achieve at UCLA.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Wow that's wonderful Mark well thank you so much for your wonderful work at UCLA. I hope to have another conversation with you in the future thank you.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Yeah thanks for having me and next time I would definitely have my background on and hopefully just be more polished for uh your wonderful podcast.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

You're pretty polished thank you. Thank you for the