Errol Arkilic, UC Irvine’s chief innovation officer and executive director of Beall Applied Innovation, leads a unit focused on bringing university research to market. Arkilic earned his aerospace engineering Ph.D. from MIT, specifically targeting the field to develop experience in commercializing new technologies from academic labs. His career has consistently pursued this goal, from starting a defense contracting company to spending a decade in Silicon Valley startups. He also created the federal I-Corps program at the National Science Foundation, which helps academics determine the value of their intellectual property.
Arkilic states a "consistent thread" defines his work: transforming new knowledge, often developed in academic settings, into products and services beneficial to society. He highlights Orange County's long history as an innovation hub, particularly Irvine. The region was instrumental in aerospace and defense from the 1960s into the 1990s and a center for semiconductor development before becoming a medical device hub. This rich legacy leads some to describe the area as "Silicon Beach South."
UC Irvine contributes to economic development through students, researchers, and companies built on university intellectual property (IP). Glaukos, a multibillion-dollar medical device company treating glaucoma, is a high-profile Orange County success story, with its primary IP originating from UC Irvine. The university also partners with the Orange County Business Council (OCBC) to enhance economic growth. This collaboration aims to move technologies from labs to market and encourage companies to remain headquartered locally.
Beall Applied Innovation assists faculty and graduate students in refining their ideas and understanding their work's value proposition—a skill often new to academics. Beall then provides education and connections to secure funding for developing these ideas into usable products. Its flagship Proof of Product (PoP) program guides concepts from initial idea to refined product through customer discovery, which involves community engagement to identify needs. Data shows that for every dollar invested in PoP funding, $1.04 returns to campus as contract research from resulting ventures.
Eira Bio, a biotech spinout, exemplifies Beall’s impact. The company developed a yeast-based synthetic biology platform to discover and optimize antibodies for new medicines. Intellectual property licensed to Eira Bio was developed by UC Irvine biomedical engineering faculty member Chang Liu. Eira Bio received early-stage funding from Beall’s PoP initiative and has since secured multimillion-dollar investment from venture capital firms like Venrock. This marks UC Irvine’s first equity investment through Beall, targeting platforms with potential to significantly advance disease treatment.
