Andrew Wooten

Executive Director
Andrew comes to LIHTI from The City College of New York where he was Founder & Managing Director of The City Innovations Collaborative. There he acquired grant awards and commercial commitments of over $35 million to build a new life science incubator and associated programming. Previously Andrew led innovation and commercialization functions at three top research institutions. At #1 ranked Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Andrew rebranded the commercialization unit, creating Cincinnati Children’s Innovation Ventures with new capabilities for product/venture acceleration and a $50 million institutional venture fund. While there he executed the largest technology commercialization transaction in the institution’s history, including $45 million upfront, with Roivant for a new sickle cell gene therapy. At Baylor College of Medicine Andrew acquired federal funding to build and staff the Innovation Development Center to accelerate biomedical innovations and ventures. His team received the 2015 Houston Healthcare Deal of the Year Award for the spinout of Baylor Genetics in a $300 million joint venture with Miraca Holdings. While there he executed the largest technology commercialization transaction in the institution’s history, including $50 million upfront, with Cell Medica for a new CAR-NKT cell therapy platform targeting Neuroblastoma and other cancer indications. At Arizona State Andrew operated the Health Science Ventures business unit. While there he structured the largest technology commercialization transaction in the institution’s history with the Mars Family Office for an algae-based renewable energy and food supplements innovation. In these three previous roles Andrew grew commercialization revenue 660%, 380%, and 300% respectively. Previously Andrew served as the founding Director of Corporate Development for AviGenic / Synageva Biopharma which was subsequently acquired for $8.4 billion by Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Early in his career Andrew gained business development skills as a representative for Themo Fisher Scientific’s Applied Biosystems division. His first job in science was as an Embryologist for Reproductive Biology Associates.