Office for External Partnerships

About

Duke’s Office for External Partnerships (OEP) proactively engages with corporations and other potential external partners to understand their needs and match these to Duke assets by means of systematic outreach and internal scouting to identify and realize partnership opportunities originating with faculty, and to demonstrate value to Duke interests.

OEP also establishes streamlined contracting processes to facilitate aspirations of faculty and expand opportunities for faculty to engage in industry relationships while enhancing quality control and risk management for contracting with industry.

Leadership

Ed Pagani, Ph.D.

Assistant Vice President for External Partnerships

ed.pagani@duke.edu

(919) 684-3131

Ed Pagani, Ph.D., is the Assistant Vice President for External Partnerships and the Executive Director of the Office for External Partnerships (OEP) at Duke University. Pagani and the OEP team are building broader and deeper engagement between Duke faculty and industry, other universities, government agencies, and foundations for the purpose of forming regional and international partnerships. These partnerships will advance basic and translational research on the Duke campus as well as for Duke’s partners.

Pagani’s professional career spans both industry and academia with a focus on drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, and intellectual property transfer. Prior to joining Duke in 2022, he served more than eight years at the University of Michigan’s Office of Innovation Partnerships, including roles as Associate Director of Licensing, and Managing Director of Therapeutic Partnerships. Pagani has assumed various management and executive roles during his twenty-two years in the pharmaceutical industry that include leading drug discovery programs, and while at Pfizer heading an office responsible for strategic research alliances and in-licensing intellectual property. Pagani served as General Manager and Vice President of Molecular Diagnostics at Beckman Coulter and over a period of five years had executive oversight and accountability for an ISO 13485 chemical manufacturing facility and a nucleic acid sequencing and products division. He also served as CEO, North America for LGC Limited, a global life sciences tool company headquartered in Teddington, England.

Pagani received an AB in Psychology from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Pagani was the recipient of the Albert J. Ryan Foundation fellowship and the University of Cincinnati Dean Dissertation Fellowship to support his doctoral education, and the recipient of a fellowship from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to support post-doctoral training at Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School.