Benefactors offer help with University of Illinois entrepreneurship program
BYLINE: The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
Feb. 26--URBANA -- Champaign developer Peter Fox and venture capitalist G. Steven Burrill have pledged a total of $200,000 to help support a new University of Illinois program that provides life science students with training in entrepreneurship and management.
The program is a joint effort of the Institute for Genomic Biology and the College of Business, with the pledged money going toward scholarships, a UI news release stated.
The certificate program is designed to equip entrepreneurially minded doctoral students in the life sciences with skills needed for managing ventures in biotechnology.
Classes are scheduled to begin in the fall, with the curriculum drawing from management, law, regulatory policy, ethics, marketing and finance.
Students in the program will also cover topics specific to the life sciences, such as managing the Food and Drug Administration approval process and conducting clinical trials.
"We are very grateful for the gifts by Peter Fox and Steven Burrill to support scholarships and internships in the new certificate program," said Harris Lewin, director of the Institute for Genomic Biology.
Fox, the founder of Fox Development Corp., will donate $50,000 a year for three years.
That donation will establish the Peter and Kim Fox Scholarships for Entrepreneurial Leadership in the Life Sciences.
Fox is also manager of Fox/Atkins Development, which manages the UI Research Park in Champaign.
Fox Ventures, a subsidiary of Fox Development, provides start-up capital for technology firms including iCyt Visionary Bioscience, Intersymbol Communications, Nanodisc, Nextumi, RiverGlass, Strata Decision Technology and SmartSpark.
Burrill, who founded Burrill & Co. in 1994, will donate $50,000 to the institute. He has been involved in the biotechnology industry for more than 40 years.
He is chairman of the board of Pharmasset and is on the boards of Catalyst Biosciences, DepoMed, Intranasal, Phytomedics, Proteogenix, Proventys, Targacept and XDx.
"We need more Ph.D.s with the skill set necessary to take inventions from the lab to the marketplace," Burrill said. "This program directly addresses that need."
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