René Bastón
Vice President, Business Development

René Bastón has extensive contacts and broad experience in both the academic and industry aspects of the life sciences and healthcare industries. As the Vice President of Business Development at the New York Academy of Sciences, Mr. Bastón has created alliances with leading universities and multinational corporations in pharmaceuticals, biotech, real estate, venture capital and other areas related to the life sciences. During the two years of Mr. Bastón’s tenure, Business Development revenues have increased from $1.7 million to $3 million (75% increase) and the Corporate Membership program has seen a revenue increase of 63% over the same period from $800,000 to $1.3 million. Mr. Bastón also initiated and helped lead the development of the Academy’s Strategic Plan.

Prior to joining the NYAS, Mr. Bastón 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.

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

Mr. Bastón 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, Mr. Bastón received a graduate degree from the Medical Informatics Program at the 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.

Mr. Bastón is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Columbia University Center for Advanced Technology.