2009-11-10 22:40:04 -
Jerald S. Cobbs, MBA, has been named chief commercialization officer of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).
“The addition of Mr. Cobbs to the CPRIT team completes the three pillars of the Institute’s mission – research led by Dr. Al Gilman, prevention under Dr. Becky Garcia and now commercialization headed up by Jerry,” said Bill Gimson, CPRIT’s executive director. “The commercialization process will allow the state to collect royalties, income and other benefits realized as a result of projects undertaken with money awarded under the cancer prevention and research fund.”
With more than 25 years of capital markets experience including serving as a senior executive for the health sciences and biotechnology industries, Mr. Cobbs will oversee CPRIT’s research
commercialization portfolio. His responsibilities include strategy and planning, project management, investment risk analysis, and performance measurement.
Mr. Cobbs earned a BA in psychology with a concentration in physiology from Texas A&I University, currently Texas A&M-Kingsville, and a MBA with a concentration in finance, from the University of Houston at Clear Lake.
“It is a pleasure for me to work with the dream team that has been assembled here at CPRIT,” said Cobbs. “This is the most significant opportunity I have seen in my career to make a major difference in patients’ lives.”
Mr. Cobbs was most recently a principal and Managing Director of Signet Healthcare Partners, a New York based private equity healthcare venture fund. His previous experience includes principal and head of healthcare investment banking at Harris, Webb & Garrison Investment Bankers where he sourced, structured and raised funding for healthcare companies on both an agency and principal basis. In addition, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Quantitative Diagnostic Laboratories. He also served as Assistant Director of Technology Development at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Mr. Cobbs continues to serve on the board of directors of BioJect Medical Technologies and the board of the Texas Life Science Center for the evaluation and commercialization of early stage life science companies in Texas.
In November 2007, Texas voters approved Proposition 15, the constitutional amendment that allows the State of Texas to issue $3 billion in general obligation bonds over ten years to fund grants for cancer research and prevention. HB 14 created the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). CPRIT’s mission is to become a world-class leader in cancer research and prevention by collaborating with all who are committed to the war on cancer. CPRIT has the mandate to create and expedite innovation in the area of cancer research and to enhance the potential for scientific breakthroughs in the prevention of cancer and cures for cancer. In the process of making fundamental cancer discoveries and delivering them to patients, CPRIT has been charged with demonstrating economic development benefit to the state while expediting innovation and commercialization.
Mr. Cobbs assumed his duties on November 2, 2009.
Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT)Sandra
Balderrama, 512-305-8450
