Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge
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ABOUT THE CHALLENGE: The Avon Foundation, The Center for Advancing Innovation, and the National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute have partnered to create the first ever business plan and start-up "Challenge" featuring inventions conceived and developed by scientists at the National Cancer Institute and Avon Foundation grantees to accelerate commercialization in support of high-growth businesses that spur entrepreneurship

PLEASE ALSO JOIN AND SUPPORT OUR NEW CHALLENGE - 
THE NEURO STARTUP CHALLENGE HERE


Business Plan Winners

Invention #1 WINNER - Cambridge University, Radial Genomics

TEAM MEMBERS: 
Nikolaus Konstantin Wenzl
Hind Kraytem
Tim Xu
Grecia Gonzalez
Alasdair Thong

Invention #2 WINNER - Washington University in Saint Louis 

TEAM MEMBERS: 
Hirak Biswas
Anurag Agarwal
Whitney Grither
Erik Nyre
Gurudutta Begur Nadiger

Invention #3 WINNER- Tulane University

TEAM MEMBERS: 
Frank Glaser
Brian Hasselfeld
Parastoo Khoshakhlagh
 
Invention #3 FINALIST - Clemson University , Novo Epi Scaffold Technology

TEAM MEMBERS: 
Michael Gara
James Chow
Joseph Holland
Alison Lamb
Dr. Brian McKinley
Breanne Przestrzelski
Dr. David Orr

Invention #4 WINNER - Stanford University

TEAM MEMBERS:
Ka Yam Chak
Graeme Fielder
Francis W. Hunter
Guus Bol
Jinfeng Shen
Joyce Zhang
Nader Nouri Zad

Invention #5 WINNER - Northwestern University, Orpheden Therapeutics

TEAM MEMBERS:
John Kuelper
Daniel Levine
Jonathan Bell
Ronald Mantel
Mthabisi Moyo
Matthew Rosenstock

Invention #6 WINNER - Rutgers University, OncoLinx

TEAM MEMBERS:
Sourav Sinha
Riley Ennis
Allen Lin
Navin Nathan
Errik Anderson

Invention #7 WINNER - Cambridge University, Riband 557

TEAM MEMBERS:
Alice MacNeil
Julia Powles
Moharem El Gihani
Alexander Frey
Jun-Han Su
Aleksandra Kotwica

Invention #7  FINALIST - Wake Forest University
WFU Bespoke Therapeutics:


TEAM MEMBERS: 
Alison Arter
Andy Bowline
Gonzo Estupinan
John Hodnette
Kyle Murrah
Janel Suburu

Invention #8 WINNER - 
Berkeley Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

TEAM MEMBERS: 
Naveen Chandramohan
Gerardo Ramirez

Invention #9 WINNER - McGill University 
ROSALIND & MORRIS GOODMAN CANCER RESEARCH CENTRE, ProVivoX Inc.

TEAM MEMBERS: 
Dmitri Kharitidi
Shawn McGuirk
Étienne Audet-Walsh
Vincent Ménard
Edwin Ferrer
Lucas Collecchia

Invention #10 WINNER - Tulane University

TEAM MEMBERS: 
Brian Yu
Richard Tang
Muralidharan Anbalagan

Business Plan News

Speakers from our Business Plan Phase Awards Ceremony
The Business Plan Phase Winners & Finalists

March 5, 2014 - NIH Videocast of our awards ceremony.  Meet our winning teams and the inventors of the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge http://1.usa.gov/1ghw7Eb

The NCI Press Release, "Breast Cancer Startup Challenge announces ten winning teams of entrepreneurs; Promising technologies identified to speed cancer research." http://1.usa.gov/1ctN52x

Read our article from the NCI on the Businness Plan Phase winners and watch all of their elevator speeches from Youtube http://1.usa.gov/1ccspvW

Bluesky, a division of the Chicago Tribune focused on innovation and entrepreneurship, interviews John Kuelper of Northwestern University on winning the business plan phase of the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge
http://bit.ly/1ivuPUZ

February 28, 2014 - The White House Blog mentions the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge as one of many research breakthroughs in innovation and entrepreneurship, "Startup America Going Strong at Three Years" http://1.usa.gov/1foxZv0
Februrary 27, 2014 - Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM) released an article about the results and statistics of the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge.  Disease Models & Mechanisms publishes original research that uses model organisms to better understand, diagnose and treat human disease.  "Pioneering new models to drive innovation in R&D and commercialization for breast cancer inventions." http://bit.ly/1eAwQLJ 

Challenge Results so Far

200 teams had interest in participating

46 teams were accepted into the challenge

478 team members are participating cumulatively 

48 unique universities are represented 

83 universities participated on teams; some universities had different students on more than one team

US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, India and the Netherlands are the countries represented


21% of the team members are from outside the US

4356 collective years of experience: 791 in startups; 1523 in medical/scientific, 839 consulting/VC and 1203 life sciences business operations experience; please see graph below
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Thanks to Finnegan for their generosity in supporting the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge Business Plan Ceremony

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Past News

November 13, 2013 - The annual Federal Lab Consortium (FLC) mid-atlantic conference took place from November 13th-November 14th.  Rosemarie Truman, Founder and CEO of the Center for Advancing Innovation spoke on a panel called "Partnerships to Accelerate Commercialization of Federal Technologies that Positively Impact the Public and Drive Breakthrough Economic Growth." The panel was moderated by Tom Stackhouse, Associate Director, Technology Transfer Center, NCI.  The focus of the panel was innovative techniques to accelerate the transfer of Federal technologies to the benefit of the American public. To learn more visit http://www.flcmidatlantic.org/events.html 
November 4, 2013 - The annual Partnering for Cures features up to 30 presentations from innovative collaborative R&D programs working to reduce the time it takes to move new medical solutions from discovery to patients. Marc Hurlbert, Executive Director of the Avon Foundation and Rosemarie Truman, Founder and CEO of the Center of Advancing Innovation, presented the the Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge at the conference.  To read more about the presentation visit http://partneringforcures.org/assets/P4C-program-agenda2.pdf on page 15
October 25, 2013 - The Kansas City Start released an article outlining the launch of the Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge at the University of Missouri - Kansas City.  The Challenge will be announced at the 2013 Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers Conference being held at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.  Rosemarie Truman, Founder and CEO of the Center for Advancing Innovation, will be speaking at the conference to detail the Challenge launch.  To read more visit http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/24/4574740/breast-cancer-start-up-challenge.html or please click here
October 13, 2013 - The Breast Cancer Startup Challenge is featured on BioCentury this week. We want women and men to know about a new approach the Avon Foundation, National Cancer Institute and Center for Advancing Innovation is using to accelerate breast cancer research.
BioCentury 10.13.13 - [1] Stuck in the Lab
October 11, 2013 - The Center for Advancing Innovation to present the Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge at the annual Global Entrepreneurship Conference in a plenary session "Opportunity Knocks" read more here about the event

September 19, 2013 - 
Avon Foundation for Women, NIH, and The Center for Advancing Innovation launch start-up challenge to advance breast cancer biomedical inventions; student and entrepreneur mentor teams to develop strategic business plan and launch biotech start-up.  Click here to learn more

September 5, 2013 - The Challenge has received recognition from the world's largest biotechnology organization, BIO; please find the posting here

Challenge Information

The above picture portrays the current active licenses from the Department of Health and Human Services intramural research
The above picture portrays the current active licenses from the Department of Health and Human Services intramural research
Challenge Background and Overview:

The Avon Foundation (AF), The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI)  are partnering to accelerate and increase the volume of technology transfer and commercialization of Federal agency and AF grantee inventions

Using selected NCI inventions from the HHS patent portfolio and an AF grantee invention, we are organizing a "first of a kind" national, university student-based start-up competition (that may also involve faculty, alumni, regional entrepreneurs and other professionals).  This Challenge provides an opportunity for students to develop a business plan for an innovative technology and launch a start-up

We hope that, by holding this Challenge, we can encourage and increase student entrepreneurship and maximize the economic and health impact of Federal agency and AF grantee inventions
Overall Goals
  • Create a new channel to ignite university innovation and entrepreneurship 
  • Make an impact on breast cancer health
  • Stimulate regional economic growth by creating start-ups and jobs
  • Facilitate the transfer of Federal agency and AF grantee inventions to the private sector
Scope
  • Topic: Approximately 10 cancer-related inventions selected from the HHS and AF grantee portfolios
  • Teams: Up to 10 Challenge Teams for each invention 
  • Phases: Letter of Intent, Business Plan and Start-up

End-Point: New start-up or, potentially, a licensing agreement between the institution that owns the invention and an existing start-up

Challenge Teams' Opportunity
  • Business Plan Phase: $5K for each winning team per invention
  • Start-Up Phase Funding: $100K (minimum, no maximum) for each start-up.  Funding amounts depend on the due diligence/funding arrangements within each participating venture organization
  • Note: None of the above funding is coming from the NIH

The Center for Advancing Innovation, INC 2013