Columbia Tech Ventures

Hear from three current and former federal officials who will offer insight into how the Obama Administration has made innovation a top priority and what this means for the future of entrepreneurship, inside and outside the government. Xavier Hughes (Chief Innovation Officer, U.S. Dept. of Labor), Cheryl Martin (former Acting Director of ARPA-E at the U.S. Dept. of Energy) and moderator and participant Javier Saade (former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Associate Administrator) as they share insights gleaned from their careers working in the public and private sectors, the paths that led them to working in the Obama administration, and their thoughts on the future of innovation and entrepreneurship going forward.

Hear Jeffrey M. Sears, PhD, Chief Patent Counsel for Columbia University, present a patent law primer focusing on what you need to know to preserve patent protection for your inventions.

Presenting a panel discussion with Marian Nakada (Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC), Bob Silverman (Roche) and Steven Weinstein (Novartis Ventures), moderated by CTV’s executive director Orin Herskowitz. The conversation touches on the various ways Big Pharma & Biotech are using venture capital investing, regional innovation centers, joint ventures, university research sponsorship, and IP licensing to source their next blockbuster products (as well as generate equity returns). The panelists share their perspectives on venture capital investing strategies in biopharma, how to pitch strategic investors, the surge in biotech IPOs, hot research areas within biopharma, and best practices for establishing R&D partnerships between industry and academia.

Presenting a discussion and Q&A with Doug Cole, managing partner of Flagship Ventures, a life science venture fund with over $1.4 billion under management and a new $574 million fund devoted to early-stage therapeutics, health technologies and sustainability. In an interview with CTV’s Executive Director Orin Herskowitz, Doug discusses Flagship Ventures’ perspective on opportunities and challenges within the venture investment landscape, current trends, past experiences with early-stage investing, its VentureLabs Fellows program, and building a career as a venture capitalist.

Pull back the curtain and find out how your patent application might hold up under prosecution by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). Columbia University’s Chief Patent Counsel Jeff Sears demonstrates a mock patent examination, showing how the USPTO looks for prior art, evaluates claims made in patent applications, and finally decides whether to award a patent.