UCLA names Amir Naiberg associate vice chancellor for research

OREANDA-NEWS. August 10, 2016. UCLA has named Amir Naiberg associate vice chancellor for research and president and CEO of Westwood Technology Transfer.

Naiberg, who joined UCLA August 3, leads the Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research, which oversees the campus’s efforts in commercializing technology, collaborating with industry and fostering entrepreneurship, as well as Westwood Technology Transfer, a nonprofit company wholly controlled by UCLA that is focused on protecting and optimizing the discoveries and inventions developed through UCLA research.

Naiberg will work in concert with several on-campus incubators and accelerators to further advance innovation, entrepreneurship and research at UCLA.

Before joining UCLA, Naiberg served for five years as general counsel and 10 years as CEO of Yeda Research and Development Company, the technology transfer company of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, one of the world’s top technology transfer organizations. He led the institute’s growth in licensing and business partnerships while building an entrepreneurial ecosystem with local incubators, investors and the Israeli government. He is one of the founders of the Israel Technology Transfer Organization, a nonprofit that unites technology transfer offices from throughout Israel. Prior to joining Yeda, he worked for a private law firm specializing in intellectual property, privacy and cyberspace law. Naiberg earned law degrees from the Hebrew University School of Law and the University of Connecticut School of Law.

UCLA receives over \\$1 billion in extramural research funding annually, and was recently ranked No. 3 among U.S. universities for launching businesses based on research by faculty members. The campus recently sold its royalty interest connected with Xtandi, a leading prostate cancer medication whose development was based on discoveries by campus researchers. UCLA will use its share of the proceeds — approximately \\$520 million — to support research programs aimed at generating additional discoveries that lead to medications and other products that serve the public good.