ROY DOUMANI

Executive Director

UCLA Business of Science Center

Roy Doumani’s path to biotechnology was a circuitous one. The son of Lebanese immigrants got his start in Los Angeles’ commercial real estate market, eventually running his own commercial real estate mortgage banking company and then founding First Los Angeles Bank. Doumani turned to biotechnology ventures and education after successfully beating prostate cancer in the 1990s. Over the next two decades, he helped found Agensys Inc., Kite Pharma, Neural Analytics Inc., Momentum Biosciences, Trethera Corp. and Spinal Singularity. Agensys sold for $537 million in 2007, and Kite Pharma sold last year for about $12 billion. Doumani launched the UCLA Business of Science Center in 2003 to help turn the school’s research into revenue. The center hosts experts to help guide student entrepreneurs and faculty inventors, and holds competitions to encourage student-based startup biotech companies. Today the university earns $1.2 billion a year from its scientific research. Doumani studied business and finance at UCLA and earned a law degree from USC.