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Erik Halvorsen became the Director of the Innovation Institute at the Texas Medical Center in November of 2015.  In that role, Erik is responsible for the TMCx and TMCx+ incubators, the Biodesign program and is working to launch a TMC investment fund in 2016.  He leads a cross-functional team responsible for the selection, incubation and acceleration of early stage healthcare companies and manages a 100,000 sq. ft. open innovation facility for ~30+ companies in healthcare, life science and digital health.  Erik strives to broadly engage TMC network of 35+ hospitals, medical schools, universities, professional programs and clinics on all aspects and stages of innovation while leveraging a network of investors, entrepreneurs, advisors, mentors, operational and technical talent and service providers to support TMC start-ups. 

Prior to joining TMC, Erik Halvorsen was the Senior Executive Director for Technology Transfer & Industry Collaborations (TTIC) at Tufts University and Tufts Medical School where he led a team and a series of initiatives to translate research and innovation into new commercial entities and products. 

From 2007-2014, Erik served as the Director of Technology and Business Development for Children’s Hospital Boston (#1 ranked pediatric hospital by U.S. News and World Report).  There he built and the Technology Innovation Development Office (TIDO) which was responsible for translating Children’s renowned laboratory and clinical research into devices, therapeutics, diagnostics, and informatics products that could benefit patients around the world. This included managing teams responsible for intellectual property, technology transfer, business development and clinical trials.  He also started and was the managing partner for the first translational investment fund at Boston Children’s investing ~$10M over the first 7 years of the fund. 

Prior to joining Children’s Hospital, Erik was Director of Business Development in Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development.  He joined Harvard in 2002 where he was primarily responsible for the patenting and licensing of technology arising from the departments of Molecular & Cellular Biology and Chemistry & Chemical Biology including early stage therapeutics, stem cells, targets and drug discovery technology.  In 2006, Erik also became the first Director of Business Development for the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI).  There he developed a comprehensive stem cell intellectual property (IP) policy, ratified and enacted by HSCI affiliated institutions, which allowed for centralization of stem cell IP and returned a portion of license revenue to fund additional stem cell research.

Erik worked at the University of Virginia Patent Foundation and the UVA Patent Foundation for-profit subsidiary, Spinner Technologies Inc. There he worked as a case manager starting up companies with faculty members around university technologies. His Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology focused on elucidating apoptotic and anti-apoptotic intracellular signaling pathways activated in Parkinson's disease and identifying potential therapeutic targets to slow or inhibit neuronal cell death and has authored and co-authored several peer reviewed papers.  Erik also holds an M.S. from the Medical College of Virginia and a B.A. from the University of Virginia.