University Of California, Los Angeles

UCLA will use this grant to create the Los Angeles Response to COVID (LA-R2C) Accelerator is a vehicle for the rapid assessment and acceleration of novel health technologies that support pandemic response and resilience. LA-R2C will scale innovative bioscience technologies across four themes essential to health security and the regional economy: prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and health equity. These themes directly impact COVID-19 recovery metrics, such as PPE supply, daily testing rates, hospitalizations, unemployment, and the ability to sustain downstream impacts on the economy during the ongoing pandemic through advancing technologies that promote health security.

LA-R2C will assemble a Rapid Response Technology Review Panel, deploy a web-based Innovation Partnering Network, and create a Virtual LaunchPad for Entrepreneurial Programming that addresses diversity in workforce development. LA-R2C will amplify existing infrastructure for regional connectivity in the biosciences through interactions with frontline community organizations and health systems, such as UCLA Health, as well as with mission-driven investors that accelerate early-stage technologies and industry manufacturers that support the production of critical resources. This novel partnership will leverage public and private stakeholders united in COVID-19 response efforts, including Los Angeles County and BioscienceLA. In the next 5 years, the anticipated impact would catalyze the creation of 20 early-stage ventures generating $100 million in funding and 200 high-wage jobs in the life science sector alongside robust public health assets that enable schools and businesses to reopen safely in the largest and most diverse county in the U.S.