Members of the Society are invited to have dinner at Cornwalls in Kenmore Square with Matt Perkins, CEO of Oxford Innovation, on Friday February 15 at 6:00pm. Oxford Innovation is the technology transfer arm of Oxford University, responsible for commercializing the inventions made by Oxford scientists. It has been very successful in starting new companies to commercialize these inventions – when drug delivery company PowderJect Pharmaceuticals was bought by Chiron in 2003 for £542 million, it yielded Oxford’s biggest cash infusion since Henry VIII, and Oxford Nanopore, which makes hand-held DNA sequencers is a “unicorn”, a privately-held company currently valued at £1.5 billion. Based on successes like these, Oxford now has the world’s largest university-linked venture capital fund, with £500 million to finance Oxford start-ups.

There is no registration fee – each attendee will pay for their own dinner (and Cornwalls has standard pub prices and an excellent selection of English beers, including Fullers) – but please register online so that we know you will be attending and can reserve the right size table. Please contact secretary@oxcamne.org with any questions.

Ashley Stevens will host the event – university-based innovation is his field. The biggest table Cornwalls has holds twelve, so an additional ten places are available.