Lili Portilla

Director, Office of Strategic Alliances

NIH/NCATS

Ms. Portilla has worked in the area of strategic alliances and technology transfer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), since 1989.  She has extensive expertise in negotiating and developing collaboration and commercialization strategies for complex, and multi-party alliances and public private partnerships.  Since December of 2011, Ms. Portilla has been serving as the Director of the Office of Strategic Alliances at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the NIH.  NCATS focuses on the transformation of the translational science process so that new treatments and cures for disease can be delivered to patients faster.  She directs the Center’s partnership, strategic alliance, and technology transfer functions as well as the Program Director for the NCATS Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Technology Transfer Research grant and contract program.  

Prior to NCATS, Ms. Portilla served as the Senior Advisor to the Director of the National Center for Research Resources and was also the Director of the National, Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Office of Technology Transfer and Development.  Ms. Portilla has also published several papers on public private partnerships.   She serves as an Ex-Oficio Board Member of the University of Kansas, Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation.  She also serves as a member of the Federal Lab Task Force on the Maryland Governor’s Life Science Advisory Board.  She holds a Master in Public Administration from American University and a Bachelor in Business Administration, double major in both finance and Spanish literature from Stephen F. Austin State University.