UCSF Funding Opportunities
Industrial Expertise, Mentoring, & Seed Funding

Depending on the field and stage of your research, often familiar funding sources do not fit the product development process. At UCSF there are many non-traditional funding sources available which are designed to specifically support this process with access to customized industrial expertise and mentoring as well as non-dilutive seed funding.

Note that the funding opportunities on this page exclusively fund research in a UCSF academic lab; Other funding sources are available after a start-up has incorporated.

1. Catalyst Program 

The Catalyst Program provides customized industrial mentorship and funding for UCSF research projects at the early stages of development into a commercial product. Catalyst focuses on five areas:

  • Therapeutics - Approaches to create and develop small molecules, biological drugs, cell and gene therapy, as well as other modalities
  • Diagnostics - Approaches to create and develop assays for biomarkers of disease and precision medicine therapeutic approaches
  • Medical Devices - Development of medical devices to address patient need
  • Digital Health - Using digital technology to support the needs of patients
  • Biotools - Approaches to create biological platforms for scientists 

Once a year, Catalyst requests proposals from the UCSF community (via RAP). Awardees receive funding and mentoring from industry experts to refine their ideas. The program continues to support the development of Catalyst projects, which may include additional funding, help with strategic industry partnering, and more.

Catalyst has over 80 active industry advisors who work with innovators to develop their research toward products for patient benefit. 

The current Catalyst cycle is closed and the next cycle will open in August 2022

Apply

Contact for more information:

Charles Hart, PhD
Director
[email protected] 

2. Catalyst + Plus

Catalyst expanded its program to Catalyst + Plus, an addition that aims to provide additional support to the previous Catalyst projects with successful progress but who still require business advice and/or supplemental funding. The first Catalyst + Plus Awards were given in Fall 2017.

Contact for more information:

Charles Hart, PhD
Director
[email protected] 

3. UC Drug Discovery Consortium

The University of California Drug Discovery Consortium, (UC DDC) strives to leverage the biomedical research and commercialization strengths of the UC system to accelerate the development of life-saving therapies. The UC DDC is a cross-campus initiative created amongst seven University of California campus medical centers, with future goals to expand to all UC Campuses. Together, leaders from these institutes work to promote drug development by providing expertise in drug discovery education and training to UC researchers, promote access to related core facilities throughout the UC system for researchers and partners, and build relationships between industry partners and researchers for enhanced project translation.

Contact for more information:

Jason Gestwicki, PhD
Executive Committee Member & San Francisco Site Lead
[email protected] 

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4. Funded Collaborations with Industry

UCSF has unique and close relationships with many large pharmaceutical and biotech companies that are excited to fund early research at UCSF within their strategic areas of interest. On a regular or rolling basis, our partner companies ask for proposals from UCSF investigators and will fully fund a number of those projects in their key interests. (Link to UCSF-specific industry funding opportunities.) UCSF works closely with many other companies not listed on this page, so please reach out to the Office of Strategic Alliances within Innovation Ventures with inquiries about working with industry. With many companies, UCSF has existing agreements in place that allow the sponsored collaboration of a research project to be executed quickly.

Contact us for more information:

Peter Kotsonis
[email protected]
(415) 323-3108

5. Area Specific Funding Opportunities

6. Ono Pharma Breakthrough Science Initiative Awards Program

Ono Pharma Foundation announces the start of the third year of the annual Breakthrough Science Initiative Awards Program in the United States and Canada. Proposals from Principal Investigators will be considered for high-risk and high-reward science research projects which have potential to lead to science discoveries/solutions and, based on further research, to breakthrough treatments for patients. Applications will be considered from Principal Investigators nominated by some 37 United States Universities and Pharmaceutical Research Institutes in the Chemical Biology field for laboratory investigation to be carried out in the United States. For the Oligonucleotide research field, applications will be considered from any eligible Universities and Institutions in the United States and Canada.

Although additional areas of research may be added in future years, in 2019 the Ono Pharma Foundation will only consider proposals for scientific research projects addressing one of the following two fields of science:

  • Chemical Biology Research
  • Oligonucleotide Medicine Research

The Awards

Awards will be made for the three-year research with $900,000 and additional institutional indirect costs up to 15%. Five awards are planned for the third year (2019). Award installments will be sent every six months in advance based on annual reports from awardees and corporate appropriations.

Please see the press release highlighting UCSF awardees and the program:  https://innovation.ucsf.edu/news/drs-michelle-arkin-and-jack-taunton-receive-ono-pharma-foundation-breakthrough-science

For further information or questions, see the attached website: http://www.onofound.org/contact/ or

Contact us for more information:

Peter Kotsonis
[email protected]
(415) 323-3108

The LOI submission is NON-CONFIDENTIAL and new dates will be posted soon.

More to come...