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In Sync

Bonds between Orange County’s major universities and its medical-device and drug companies run deep, and lately they have been getting broader.

Business ties with faculty and students at University of California, Irvine, are the most well-known, while California State University, Fullerton, and Chapman University have been boosting efforts to forge links to area corporations active in the field.

Initiatives include efforts to sync undergraduate and graduate programs to changing industry needs, as well as expanded internship opportunities and an ongoing dialogue among students, faculty and company executives.

Cal State Fullerton began offering a master’s degree in applied biotechnology in 2009, with a number of the program’s inaugural graduates landing jobs at drug maker Allergan Inc. in Irvine and other OC companies.

Goals of the curriculum include training middle managers who are “fluent” in bringing products to market for biotech, drug and medical-device companies, program director David Dyer said.

Depth of knowledge in the field and an ability to communicate are considered key to graduates’ success.

“This type of manager is central to proper development in high-tech,” Dyer said.

Students in the program regularly participate in industrial internships, and their course study involves actual development work on medical devices.

Program officials and faculty facilitate relationships with Allergan, Brea-based medical testing equipment company Beckman Coulter Inc. and Irvine-based heart-valve maker Edwards Lifesciences Corp. Company employees serve as guest lecturers, and some of them teach at the university part time.

CSUF officials also collaborate with representatives of similar programs at California State Polytechnic University- Pomona and California State University, Los Angeles.

Dyer was a senior scientist and research director in the biotech industry prior to coming to CSUF. He said its applied biotech program serves as “a bridge back to the biotech and pharma and med-device communities” in the region, which covers an estimated 500 companies.

“The goal here was to prepare a program, a curriculum that was going to recognize that students need to be able to move out of the university into companies,” said program cofounder Robert Koch, interim dean of CSUF’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

UCI Roundtable

Goals of the curriculum include training middle managers who are “fluent” in bringing products to market for biotech, drug and medical-device companies. —David Dyer, program director Cal State Fullerton

Several high-profile device executives are members of UC Irvine’s Chief Executive Roundtable, an advisory group that helps university officials and faculty on matters of mutual interest to the school and local business.

Roundtable participants have included Allergan Chief Executive David Pyott; Robert Grant, chairman and managing partner of Newport Beach industry investor Strathspey Crown LLC; James Mazzo, president of Santa Ana-based Abbott Medical Optics Inc.; and Edwards Lifesciences Chief Executive Michael Mussallem.

Roundtable director Goran Matijasevic said the organization helps connect executives with various academic disciplines at the university.

He cited a relationship with Edwards that led to the establishment of the Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology, which opened in 2010.

“That was an interest from Edwards,” Matijasevic said. “They donated $5 million to establish this center; that was UCI’s interest as well. We have obviously a cardiovascular center of excellence here locally with the number of companies led by Edwards.”

The Edwards center is part of UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and is led by Steven George, who previously headed UCI’s biomedical engineering program.

Another example is UCI’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, which is scheduled to open in the spring and has gotten support from Pyott and Mazzo.

“They saw, again, that UCI was bringing in major faculty in that field,” Matijasevic said.

Eye healthcare companies form a local business cluster. Companies in that segment and others support the university’s programs to help build up their future work forces, Matijasevic said.

“As long as there’s interest in individuals on our side and their side collaborating, there’s going to be the impetus to keep moving things forward,” said Jacob Levin, UCI’s assistant vice chancellor for research and development.

Levin said all five of the University of California campuses with medical schools are working together to compete for a $24 million commercialization center funded through the National Institutes of Health.

UCI also has worked with smaller device and drug makers. Those include two Irvine-based companies, Irvine Pharmaceutical Services Inc.—headed by UCI alumnus Assad Kazeminy—and its unit Avrio Biopharmaceuticals LLC. The companies recently donated equipment to the campus and are helping strengthen its connection to the Food and Drug Administration’s regional office in Irvine, Levin said.

TechPortal Orange, located on UCI Medical Center’s campus in Orange, also ties the school to area industry. Its goal is to link UCI faculty working on medical devices with representatives of the private sector, including potential investors or acquirers.

“There is definitely a lot of feeling within the university and feedback from local industry that we could be doing better, we could be doing more,” Levin said in November soon after the initiative was launched.

Research-related grants are another big aspect of UCI’s ties to the local corporate community. Scientists working out of the university’s Sue and Bill Gross Center for Stem Cell Research have received three grants totaling more than $57 million in recent weeks to partner with various companies on developing treatments.

Chapman’s Charge

Chapman, a private university in Orange, hasn’t had much interaction with the devices and drugs segment of area business, but school officials are on a big push to change that.

Chapman announced in February that it would establish a joint school of biopharmacy with Keck Graduate Institute, based at Keck’s campus in Claremont. The graduate-level program aims to train pharmacists for professions in biotechnology and the drug industry.

Chapman President James Doti said the collaboration builds on Keck’s “close biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry ties,” while taking advantage of Chapman’s historical strengths in “computational sciences and entrepreneurship.”

The school of biopharmacy will “reflect rapidly developing changes in the field,” including the rise of more personalized medicine and the spread of team-based operating environments, officials said. Efforts are under way to recruit a founding dean for the new school, with candidates required to show an entrepreneurial orientation and experience in pharmacy education and the industry.

Initial classes will be held on Keck’s campus in Claremont. Chapman plans eventually to offer the curriculum at the university’s planned 120,000-square-foot science center in Orange.

The center also will house Chapman’s Schmid College of Science & Technology.

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