Inside Pitt Innovation Institute with the Associate Director, Office of Industry & Economic Partnerships Paul-Valentin Pitou

Paul-Valentin joined the Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships in 2017, and currently manages industry and venture capital partnerships at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior, Paul-Valentin worked in the financial services industry in London, UK, as a Senior Relationship Manager, responsible for business development in the French-speaking European countries. Paul-Valentin also has experience working in France, Germany and Canada. He holds two Masters from Hult International Business School in London and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and Management. He recently completed his part-time MBA at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business; and holds the Investment Management Certificate from the CFA Society United Kingdom, which he successfully took in 2014.

Can you please share how your prior roles prepared you for your current role in managing industry and venture capital partnerships at the University of Pittsburgh's Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships?

In my previous role in London (UK), I was a relationship manager for a news- and data-provider in the mutual funds industry. I managed a portfolio of asset managers in France, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Monaco: family offices, retail & private banks, pension funds, wealth managers, financial advisors. These countries are major financial centers in Europe, and my portfolio was ever growing. In this role, I developed relationship building and management skills. It trained me to be customer service oriented. I also developed business development skills as we entered new markets. I like to think that all these skills play a very important role in my current function.

Tell us more about The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) at the University of Pittsburgh

The missions of the Office are to drive societal impact of Pitt research by commercializing Pitt technologies and by driving Industry Sponsored Research (ISR) at Pitt. Our responsibilities include the protection of Pitt innovations, finding the right licensing partners for our technologies, assisting our Faculty in the formation of start-ups, and developing research partnerships with Industry. So we are really focused on business development and R&D, with front- and back-offices functions under the same roof. The Office is also composed of our Big Idea Center focused on developing the innovative and entrepreneurial skills of the Pitt student community; and finally, our Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence provide small businesses located in western Pennsylvania with consulting, education and networking opportunities.

What are the primary areas of focus/centers of excellence/strengths at Pitt?

The research at Pitt is focused on engineering and the health sciences. On the engineering side, energy, advanced materials, biomaterials and sustainability are areas where we are seeing a lot of exciting research and collaborations. On the health sciences-side, Pitt research is particularly strong in Neuroscience, Ophthalmology, Oncology, Women’s Health, and Cardiometabolic disorders. Our affiliation with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) gives us the opportunity to partner with Industry on basic- but also clinical-research. For example, our Hillman Cancer Center has more than 300 scientists working together to advance our understanding of cancer and its mechanisms. We recently opened the Vision Institute, a state-of-the-art facility in Pittsburgh dedicated to vision loss and vision restoration. The Institute is led by Dr. José-Alain Sahel, a world renowned clinician-scientist in vision restoration in retinal degenerative diseases. We also have an extraordinary community of neuroscience researchers with 35 centers, institutes, and departments, and more than 475 individual faculty members all focused on various aspects of neuroscience. The Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases led by Dr. J. Timothy Greenamyre brings together clinicians and scientists to translate cutting edge science into novel therapies and diagnostics that can directly benefit individuals affected by neurodegenerative diseases. Our Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation is the largest research institute in the U.S. devoted exclusively to women's health research. And we are excited about a 185,000-square-foot biomanufacturing facility dedicated to cell and gene therapies and other novel treatments that is being built near campus.

In light of the OIEP's mission to foster partnerships between the University and industry, can you elaborate on your vision for further advancing mutually beneficial collaborations that leverage Pitt's research capabilities and expertise to address industry-relevant R&D challenges and contribute to regional economic development?

The vision is to double industry sponsored research at the university over five years by proactively matching leading research at the university with the needs and focus areas of industry. At OIEP we are reaching out to industry to best understand and catalog their areas of scientific need, and are constantly scanning the market to understand forward looking areas of scientific research. We also work closely with regional economic development organizations in the Pittsburgh region to drive and enable regional growth by assisting Pitt start-ups, attracting early stage funding to the area and by increasing industry engagement in Western Pennsylvania.

Where do you see synergies between OIE and venture creation firms like VIC Tech?

Based on my experience, venture creation firms like VIC Tech have a good understanding and the right expectations for what’s needed to take a technology from one of our labs to commercialization. Our technologies are often very early-stage, so it’s good to have a partner with that understanding, experience and expectations. VIC Tech providing business- and management-support is a key for the success of venture creation. VIC Tech is willing and able to take the lead on operating the venture while the inventor focuses on their scientific role. And of course, VIC Tech is a conduit for funding, but it’s the building and scaling of the venture that makes it a good fit for us.

What is the level of annual sponsored research at Pitt each year and about how many new technology disclosures are generated each year from this research?

We reached $51M of industry-sponsored research last year, up 26% compared to 2020. Industry funding remains a relatively small portion of our overall research expenditure which reached the $1bn mark in 2022 thanks largely to funding coming from the National Institutes of Health (Pitt ranked #3 in NIH funding in the country in 2022 with $670 million awarded). Our faculty filed 359 invention disclosures in FY2023 for 113 patents issued, and we create – on average – about 14 startups per year.