René Bastón

Chief Business Officer

René Bastón has extensive contacts and broad experience in both the academic and industry aspects of the life sciences and healthcare industries. As the Chief Business Officer at the New York Academy of Sciences, Mr. Bastón has created alliances in the U.S. and internationally with leading universities, governments, and multinational corporations in pharmaceuticals, biotech, real estate, venture capital, IT, electronics, consumer goods and other areas related to life sciences, physical sciences and engineering. During the four years of René's tenure, business development revenues have increased 250%. René also initiated and helps lead the Academy's annual Strategic Planning exercises and created and leads its Science & Technology Innovation and Economic Development advisory practice.

Prior to joining the NYAS, René was an Associate Director at Columbia University's Science & Technology Ventures, where he was responsible for identifying promising emerging technologies, protecting the intellectual property, and negotiating licenses and research collaborations with established or startup companies in the areas of biotechnology, biomedical informatics, medical imaging, and nanobiotechnology.

René was also the co-founder, Vice President of Business Development, and acting CTO of Medihub, a New York based provider of software and consulting services to the medical industry.

René founded Medihub after spending several years in the technology enablement and business transformation divisions of Ernst & Young's Healthcare Consulting Group where he was one of the founding members of the E&Y e-Health Incubator Team.

Before making the transition to industry, René received a graduate degree from the Medical Informatics Program at Columbia University, where he performed research on the application and development of controlled medical vocabularies. He also spent several years performing neurobiology research in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel at the Columbia University Center for Neurobiology and Behavior.

René is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Columbia University Center for Advanced Technology and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

Contact Us

René Bastón

Chief Business Officer
212.298.8674
rbaston@nyas.org