Last April, UC Davis Health added a new C-suite role to lead its Ventures Office, and the role is quickly becoming more essential to the system's long term success.
Life sciences industry veteran Don Taylor, PhD, stepped into the inaugural chief ventures officer role almost a year ago, overseeing partnerships with innovation, entrepreneurship and industry engagement for the system. His team supports the development and commercialization of intellectual property and advanced research.
But the role's influence goes beyond theoretical innovation to have a dollars-and-cents impact on the bottom line.
"We have recently added a chief ventures officer to develop new, external and diversified revenue for our health system, and explore things such as partnering with industry to accelerate revenue opportunities and mitigate financial risk," David Lubarsky, MD, CEO and vice chancellor of human health sciences at UC Davis Health, told Becker's in a recent interview.
Dr. Taylor has previous experience as executive director of licensing at The Ohio State University and assistant vice chancellor for commercial translation in the health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also an entrepreneur and led corporate development for drug discovery company Cellumen.
The Ventures Office has multiple focus areas, including cell and gene therapy, neuroscience, oncology and food technology. These efforts, along with UC Davis' Venture Catalyst and InnovationAccess programs, are an increasingly important part of the health system's strategy as healthcare organizations face the tough economic reality of costs growing faster than reimbursements.
"As health system margins continue to tighten, and the mission of healthcare continues to expand, we have to be looking for better ways to monetize products we have developed, commercialize what we can, provide health-adjacent services to expand revenue sources, and manufacture those things we are best positioned to create," said Dr. Lubarsky.
Dr. Lubarsky will be a speaker at the Becker's 12th CEO+CFO Roundtable, Nov. 11-14 in Chicago. Click here to register. Interested in exhibitor and sponsorship opportunities? Download the prospectus here.