Ofra Weinberger is the Director of Commercialization and Licensing at Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV). She oversees the management of over 400 inventions, 200 patents, approximately 100 licenses to industry, and the formation of approximately 25 new startups per year.

This interview gets into the weeds of what successful technology transfer programs look like. I learned A TON about how one of the best TTOs out there operates. They constantly keep their mission of doing good in the world top-of-mind, and let it trickle down to small practices like responding to emails within 24 hours. The programs they have created to increase the chances of success for their student and faculty inventions are industry-leading, including the Executive in Residence Program, their Lab to Market Accelerators, and their Fellows Program. 

We talk about walking before you run, the importance of industry engagement and networking, and some detailed licensing terms that university entrepreneurs should know, including recommended process improvements for launching university startups, as well as term sheet recommendations for launching university startups. 

More about Ofra

Ofra is also Associate VP for IP and Technology Transfer at Columbia University. She leads the licensing and startup formation team at Columbia, overseeing the commercialization of technologies in a portfolio comprising both life sciences and physical sciences opportunities and has extensive experience negotiating licenses, research collaborations and strategic alliances, and spinning out companies to commercialize university technologies. Ofra received a PhD in immunology from Harvard University. 

More about CTV

CTV, the technology transfer office of Columbia University, has been involved with launching over 180 companies based on Columbia's technologies to date, and has returned over $3B in revenue to Columbia, making it one of the most successful university tech transfer programs in the world.

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