GCV Powerlist 2017: Christopher Coburn

Christopher Coburn, newly promoted as chief innovation officer at Partners Healthcare, is in charge of the venturing team at the largest academic research enterprise in the US.

Partners Healthcare’s core hospitals are the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), while faculty are appointed at Harvard Medical School.

Each of the companies in its portfolio is built around a technology developed by Partners’ Harvard-appointed faculty at its core hospitals, including a pending “nine-digit deal with a global concern to be announced in the next couple of weeks”. Such successes mean Partners’ latest fund should close “at about $165m”, Coburn said, with another “$100m external fund principally focused on one unit at MGH”.

As chief innovation officer, Coburn is joining up the team and said he would be taking over and integrating Partners’ “international consulting arm into our core operations” and moving into a new headquarters in Boston.

Coburn previously worked as executive director of US-based Cleveland Clinic Innovations (CCI). Coburn founded the unit, which now has a team of 70, to commercialise the institute’s $300m annual research budget through licensing and spinoffs.

From its inception in 2000 to Coburn’s departure, CCI’s 55 spinoffs raised nearly $700m. He also pioneered CCI’s national Innovation Alliance, through which the clinic manages innovation for providers throughout the US.

Prior to his arrival at CCI, Coburn was a vice-president at Battelle Memorial Institute, a non-profit research institute in Ohio, US. Coburn was also Ohio’s first science and technology adviser to the state governor, advising on all matters of technology, science and related economic strategy.