Dr. Raphael Hofstein, president and CEO of MaRS Innovation, delivered a guest lecture on February 1,2013 at the Revitalizing Medical BioTechnology Commercialization symposium, hosted by Stanford University‘s NIH Graduate Training Program in Biotechnology.

The one-day event brought academic, venture capital and industry thought leaders together to reflect on the challenges facing technology transfer processes across the biotech industry.

Hofstein spoke about “Promoting and Brokering Biotech Innovation.” Other panelists included:

• James Chen of the Stanford Chemical Biology Institute
• Ross Jaffe, managing director of Versant Ventures
• Steve Quake, professor and entrepreneur at Stanford University
• Joel Scherer, managing director at Chorus (Eli Lilly)
• Thomas Unger, executive director of worldwide regulatory strategy at Pfizer

“Across the biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical industries, there’s growing consensus that the classical tech transfer model doesn’t work,” says Hofstein. “Everyone’s looking for new ways to do business, and MaRS Innovation’s novel commercialization model continues to attract significant interest both here in Canada, in the United States and around the world.”

Here’s the event synopsis:

Life Science VCs are closing their doors, bio-energy stocks have plummeted, and biotech investments have had high uncertainty, low liquidity and low returns. Yet, we now have unprecedented biological knowledge and R&D capabilities. This symposium brings together a panel of experienced speakers to offer new insights and approaches designed to accelerate development and increase success rates and investment returns for biopharmaceutical, diagnostic and medical device opportunities.

Approximately 50 students enrolled in the training program attended the event, which was sponsored by Standford’s BioX program and BayBio, Northern California’s Life Sciences Association.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, marketing and communications manager.