Catalyst Awards for the Development of Diagnostics, Devices, Therapeutics and Digital/Computational Health

INDEPENDENT REVIEW

Project Award Amount: Up to $75,000

OFFERED IN FALL CYCLE.  This grant will not be reviewed by RAP review committees; it will be independently reviewed by the Catalyst Award Industry Advisor Selection Committee.

The Catalyst Program is UCSF’s translational accelerator focused on advancing UCSF discoveries with clinical impact and commercial potential. Catalyst Awards are the centerpiece of the Catalyst Program that provide both seed funding and industry advisor mentorship to UCSF Principal Investigators (PIs) with promising projects that have the potential to advance along the translational path to commercialization and patient benefit. 

Catalyst Awards are designed to support Translational Research with a clear path toward clinical implementation or commercialization. Catalyst Awards are focused on the advancement and validation of promising solutions, including:

• Therapeutics (e.g., lead optimization, preclinical efficacy and safety studies, IND-enabling work)
• Diagnostics (e.g., biomarker validation, regulatory readiness)
• Medical Devices (e.g., prototyping, bench and animal testing, usability, regulatory strategy)
• Digital Health Technologies (e.g., functional validation, integration into clinical workflows, usability testing) and Computational Health (i.e. AI, LLMs, ML, etc.)

Catalyst Awards do not fund discovery research. Ineligible projects include, but are not limited to:

• Basic or exploratory research
• Target identification or biomarker discovery
• Projects lacking a clear path for clinical or commercial advancement 

The Catalyst Awards are focused on the development of therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices, and digital health.  Thanks to co-funding partnerships across UCSF, projects in their respective areas of focus are of special interest for Catalyst Awards. These entities include the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, the School of Pharmacy, and the Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine.  

Previous Catalyst Awardees include UCSF investigators whose projects span a broad range of innovative concepts. The mentorship and funding awardees receive enable projects to reach key milestones along the translational path towards commercialization and patient benefit. 

Award Process
The award process is aligned with UCSF PRIDE values, UCSF Principles of Community and this program does not use race, gender, sex, or other protected categories or proxies for protected categories in the selection process. Please refer to https://opportunity.ucsf.edu/about/pride-values and https://opportunity.ucsf.edu/about/principles-community

Eligibility: Applicants must be a UCSF Faculty member in any series (Ladder Rank, In Residence, Clinical X, Health Science Clinical, Adjunct) or any rank (Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Full Professor). Students, Residents, Clinical and Postdoctoral Fellows, and Specialists are eligible to submit applications as a PI if they have a faculty member as a Co-PI.

Submission Rules

Intellectual Property (IP): Projects should have a strong potential for obtaining Intellectual Property. Any existing IP has to be assigned to, or jointly owned by, the Regents of the University of California. 

Estimated Timeline:

Proposals will be evaluated on the following:

1.        Unmet medical need  
         - indication
         - limitations of current standard of care
         - potential for clinical impact

2.       Scientific rationale 
         - validation of the approach

3.       Development feasibility 
         - realistic goals and timelines
         - appropriate aims for advancing along the translational path

4.       Commercial attractiveness 
         - indication prevalence and incidence; competitive landscape; size of market;
           feasibility of clinical path; reimbursement considerations; ability to attract additional follow-on funding

5.       Intellectual property status
         - status of disclosures and filings; opportunities to generate IP; potential issues

Neuroscience projects will be selected based on alignment with the Weill Institute's goals and priorities.

TO APPLY:

STEP 1) Complete the electronic application form.  Please note there are several pieces of information that need to be provided directly via the electronic application form (selecting the appropriate grant mechanism, providing demographic information, uploading an abstract, etc.).

STEP 2) Upload the proposal as a SINGLE PDF that includes all the items listed in order from the instructions below. 

Format Requirements: Arial, Aptos, or Calibri font; 11 pt; minimum 0.5 inch for all margins.

Application Length: Maximum of 3 pages (not including PI and team bios, literature citations, and budget pages).

Application Content:

• PI name(s) and project title
• Brief executive summary that includes: the unmet medical need being addressed; the discovery or observation underlying the project; the specific focus of the Catalyst project; and the future product
• Details on unmet medical need and competitive landscape (how the medical need is currently being addressed and other approaches being pursued to the same end)
• Details on the discovery and their implications for the eventual product opportunity; details on the current state of the project
• Details on the proposed Catalyst project’s specific aims, and how the aims will advance the project along the product’s development path
• Intellectual property status (disclosures made to OTMA, any patent filings, any issues)
• Current sources of funding for the project; existing collaborations with other institutions on the project; funding strategy after the Catalyst Award phase of the project. 
• ‘Exit strategy’ (out-license to industry partner, initiate a clinical trial, start a company, etc.)
• Additional requirements
  • Literature citations 
  • PI and team short bios (please do not include NIH Biosketches)
  • Budget – include the amount requested for each specific aim of the project; each aim’s estimated timeline, and the milestones to be achieved by that aim. PIs are required to list their effort whether paid or in-kind. Use the following budget template form: Catalyst Program Budget Justification Template

Allowable Expenses:

*  NIH based salary cap  
**Travel is restricted to reaching project sites