TMC’s Halvorsen Exits Innovation Institute in Houston

[Updated 12/13/18, 7:20 p.m.] Erik Halvorsen, who led the Texas Medical Center’s Innovation Institute, is out as director of the institute.

Lance Black, the institute’s medical device lead, became the interim director Thursday, Black confirmed. He declined to comment further. Halvorsen, a veteran of the Boston biotech scene, joined the TMC nearly three years ago to helm the medical center’s innovation efforts, including directing its TMCx accelerator. The program works with early stage medical device and health IT companies. He also joined the board of the TMC Venture Fund last year, established to invest $25 million in biotech startups.

[Updated] Bill McKeon, TMC CEO, declined to comment Thursday evening.

The TMC has taken a lead role in developing Houston’s life sciences ecosystem in the last few years and Halvorsen was an active participant in innovation programs throughout the city, including efforts like Houston Exponential.

Author: Angela Shah

Angela Shah was formerly the editor of Xconomy Texas. She has written about startups along a wide entrepreneurial spectrum, from Silicon Valley transplants to Austin transforming a once-sleepy university town in the '90s tech boom to 20-something women defying cultural norms as they seek to build vital IT infrastructure in a war-torn Afghanistan. As a foreign correspondent based in Dubai, her work appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek/Daily Beast and Forbes Asia. Before moving overseas, Shah was a staff writer and columnist with The Dallas Morning News and the Austin American-Statesman. She has a Bachelor's of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and she is a 2007 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. With the launch of Xconomy Texas, she's returned to her hometown of Houston.