The Breast Cancer Startup Challenge (BCSC) has truly been the greatest experience of my academic and professional career. I have been successful in many academic competitions in the past, however the BCSC has set up teams for success unlike any other competition. This first-of-its-kind competition stems from the brilliant mind Rosemarie Truman and her amazing team and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In addition to identifying the most promising technologies at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NCI Rosemarie has provided the services of herself and the entire Center for Advancing Innovation, to guarantee success.

Rosemarie’s vision and grit in this endeavor is truly unparalleled. She had the resources and the expertise to help any team get over any hurdle or obstacle. She made introductions, refined pitches, made important resources accessible, and recruited some of the most prominent industry partners to give each team every opportunity to succeed. It was amazing to see this kind of commitment because usually in any entrepreneurial endeavor is difficult to navigate and there can be a lot of uncertainty, but much of that was minimized with the help of Rosemarie and her team.

Going forward, we should all look forward to the foundation of many great startups from similar CAI and NIH Startup Challenges. These competitions explore all a previously untapped “treasure trove” of innovation to make an impact on human health. More than $32 Billion of taxpayer money goes to the world-class NIH laboratories every year, but if that research and innovation never reaches market, there is no opportunity to make a real impact on real lives. I hope that these Startup Challenges continue to grow and spin-out life-changing technologies that can make a meaningful impact on human health, and we at Oncolinx will do anything we can to see that through.


Sincerely,


Sourav Sinha and the entire Oncolinx team

The Oncolinx team has been working hard securing funding to move forward with the NCI technology. Oncolinx was accepted into the MassChallenge Accelerator, the largest accelerator in the world. Oncolinx was 1 out of 127 total teams admitted from a pool of 1700+ startups that applied from 40 US states and 51 countries around the world. In late June, Oncolinx relocated to the scenic Seaport district of Boston to participate in this accelerator that offers world-class mentorship, exposure, funding opportunities, in-kind services totaling more than $10MM, and cash prizes of more than $1MM. So far, Oncolinx has been arranged law services with the lawyers at top-tier law firm Foley & Lardner, LLP. Oncolinx has also secured renowned advisors and mentors with drug development, investor, bio-entrepreneurial experience. Many of these mentors have successfully founded and exited their own biotechs. Now operating in the Heart of Boston, Oncolinx has had the opportunity to engage Boston’s diverse Angel and VC groups. Recently, Oncolinx was also named a Semi-Finalist in the LiveStrong Big C Competition and the winner of the Global Biotech Revolution (GBR) – Voices of Tomorrow Competition. As winner of the GBR Voices of Tomorrow Competition, Oncolinx was awarded £2,000. In addition, Oncolinx was given mentorship by some of GBRs top biotech entrepreneurs and UK-based pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Another great resource awarded through the competition is mentorship from McKinsey & Company. Oncolinx continues to work hard everyday to develop safer, more powerful cancer therapies.

The last few months have been hectic, but not without their share of victories. Our licensing agreement and commercialization plan are in the final stages, and through fruitful discussions we have adapted our R&D and marketing strategies to best fit the needs of patients, pathologists, oncologists, insurance companies, and cancer foundations.  

ProVivoX was a finalist for the Dobson Cup, McGill University’s entrepreneurship competition, and members of our team have been featured in interviews with the National Post and Montreal’s CityTV. We have also recently launched a crowdfunding initiative through experiment.com to involve our community in our seed funding. We have been in contact with Quebec’s consortium for industrial research and innovation in medical technology, as well as several venture capitalists and angel investors, and we have initiated collaborative grant applications to achieve our first-year R&D funding goal.  

Throughout all this we are extremely thankful for all the support – from Rosemarie and the BCSC team, from our mentors, and from our community. The Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge is a truly unique opportunity, and it has contributed to our personal career development in ways we could not imagine. We are excited to have come this far in the development of our start-up, and we can’t wait to finally breach the R&D phase to develop our prognostic test.  

On a personal note, we are happy to welcome Rosemarie Truman to Montreal as keynote speaker for Science & Policy Exchange’s 2014 Innovation conference, and we look following the progress of teams participating in the Brain Challenge!

- Shawn McGuirk and ProVivoX team

Mesopharm Therapeutics officially launches on April 7th, 2014 after winning the Start-up phase of the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge (BCSC) (http://breastcancerstartupchallenge.com). Our talented team brings together people with diverse expertise and backgrounds from Stanford University (USA), University of Auckland (New Zealand), and University Medical Center Utrecht (Netherlands), reflecting the power of multidisciplinary and global collaboration. 


OUR MISSION:

At Mespharm, our goal is to revolutionize cancer therapies by combining state of the art therapeutics and theranostics. We envision to develop first-in-class biological therapies at a pre-clinical stage and to accelerate their transition into the clinic. Our flagship drug candidates target specific cell surface protein that is highly expressed in breast cancer and other tumors. We plan to extend our therapies beyond breast cancer to other devastating cancers where our drug candidates show indication for therapeutic use.

Milestones: 

• Mesopharm won the BCSC on March 5th, 2014 and officially incorporated on April 7th, 2014.
  
• Licensing application for two fields of use (FOU) submitted on April 15th, 2014; one FOU is on Federal Register notice on July 19th, 2014. 
  
• Initiated conversation with potential industrial partnership with Pfizer, MedImmune/Astrazeneca, Celgene, Igenica,
  
• Riverside Antibody. 
  
• Have successfully secured full support of chemistry expertise on therapeutic drug development from the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre, Thoracic Oncology Austin Hospital/Ludwing Cancer Centre, The Ferrier Institute (Wellington, NZ). 
  
• Pitched to various venture capital firms: Harbert Venture Partners, Hatteras Venture Partners, Avalon Ventures, and Sanofi-Sunrise.
  
• Expanded the Advisory Board in all disciplines; met with Roche Venture Fund, Mission Bay Capital, and Orbimed. 
  
• Enrolled in QB3 for upcoming SBIR application.
  

It is increasingly difficult for early stage startups to break into the competitive sphere of Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industry. The Breast Cancer Startup Challenge organized by the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) has provided one-of-a-kind opportunity for young minds with passion to make an impact in the pharmaceutical field. 

At Mesopharm, we are grateful to have Rosemarie Truman and her CAI team from day 1 of the Challenge. The CAI not only provides guidance and support but also organizes connection to experienced advisors, resources, and seed funders. In addition, the CAI is truly interested in growth of a young company, particularly in gaining experience in entrepreneurship. Mesopharm looks forward to the ongoing association with the CAI and our next exciting phases of growth in the coming months.

Best,

Kayam Chak, Ph.D
Co-founder & COO
Mesopharm Therapeutis, Inc.

At Heragen, we feel that we are at the most challenging and exciting phase of our journey so far. We have now moved on from the initial euphoria and the formalities of company formation to a phase of design and implementation of our strategies, especially the near-term ones. 

In contrast to the days when we were iteratively designing our logo, we are now already through several rounds of iteration of our business strategy and this process I must say is much exciting than the former. As I reevaluate, I made three observations that I think reflects almost any start-up journey.

Firstly, the process and methodology of strategy optimization has shifted from that in the first few rounds of iteration to the more recent ones. This is because, earlier, our decision making was primarily driven by the mined data from internet and then by other sources like leveraging our first-degree network. However, the more recent iterations were governed by the take-away from our discussions and deliberations with industry leaders, scientific experts and potential investors. This shift I think is unavoidable for anyone that is establishing a venture in a field that they are no expert. In a way, it reflected our progress in learning and understanding the cancer molecular diagnostics domain. As we understood the domain better, we held realistic views on the subject in our discussions with people in the know-how and were also able to appreciate the nuances and intricacies involved. This I think not only gained us the much needed good will from the experts that we were scouting for various engagements but also expanded our network significantly.

Secondly, qualitative refinement of views and opinions that we receive from people that we talked to played a major role in setting the direction for Heragen. This refinement of opinions and ideas deserved a 360o view of the situation. It meant not only analyzing the potential implications of implementing a particular thought or idea but also understanding the apriori biases of the source involved. Well, one may say that the biases of the source should not matter as long as the potential implication is beneficial to the startup. To some extent that’s true in the short term but I feel that understanding the biases reveals a better picture of the long-term implication.

Finally, as clichéd as it may sound, a start-up journey has its fair share of both highs and lows. Sometimes, the lows are prolonged. But hang in. Reassess. Optimize. Bite the low until the next high.

Cheers
Naveen Chandramohan

P.S – Actually, it’s more like this and I am with the trumpet ;-)

Medicogen continues to move forward, while being cautious to balance allocation of resources and development risk!

On the licensing front, we think we are nearing finalization of an exclusive deal with Clemson on the key patents. As expected, it has taken some time to align incentives in a way that works for our team and for the university.  Stay tuned for updates!

Collaboration with the R&D team has also continued.  The goal is to complete in vivo feasibility studies within a year -- the output from this work will dictate the future direction of the company!  We are working with the lab to discuss GLP compliance, and considering launching parallel efforts with outside GLP-compliant laboratories, if necessary.  

We would welcome questions or feedback from anyone reading this post!  Please reach out to CAI or to us directly.

- Medicogen

Daniel Levine
Dan@orpheden.com

Orpheden has made exciting progress in the previous months. We worked hard to define and source vendors for our near-term operations, established strong relationships with potential angels and strategic investors, and worked with patient advocacy groups to truly understand the need for our dendritic cell therapy.  Not to mention our new online presence at www.OrphedenTherapeutics.com and on Twitter @Orpheden

Apparently we are doing something right as we have received repeated recognition for the quality of our budding business: Our license application for Granulysin-Dendritic Cells was accepted by the NIH and posted to the federal register; We were selected as a “featured company” at Techweek Chicago’s WellTECH Summit, an event followed up with national media coverage; Orpheden’s business plan was selected as a “finalist” in the iBIO PROPEL business plan competition, giving us a chance to pitch in front of over 200 investors for the grand prize in August; We pitched during the Northwestern tech transfer office’s annual meeting to their board of directors; And we were nominated for the 13th annual Chicago Innovations Awards, a prestigious entrepreneurship award given in September;

All in all, we are excited to guide Orpheden as it continues to gain momentum towards a flourishing pharmaceutical company.

Brian Yu
pyu@tulane.edu

Since our last blog, we have accomplished a good deal. In April, we legally formed a company and created an operating agreement. In May, we participated in an elevator pitch event and met with representatives from venture capital firms in the audience. We have learned a lot from feedback of our pitches both inside and outside the competition, including how to develop our product, how to demonstrate our value, and how to communicate our goals. On the research front, we have talked to potential partners with clinical and laboratory expertise. We continue to enjoy the support of faculty advisors at Tulane Medical School, and we are looking forward to beginning our product development this fall.

An exemplary initiative from a committed team.

I feel that the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge (BCSC) is one of the most well-organized start-up challenges conducted. Right from initial selection of participating teams until announcement of winners and subsequent start-up mentorship, at each step, Rosemarie and her team (Youhong Wang & Jonathan Lui) represent clarity of vision, structured planning and near perfect implementation.

The efforts that Rosemarie puts in to see winning teams succeed as start-ups deserve a special mention. At Heragen, we have been continuously working with Rosemarie in the last few months, fine-tuning our product strategy and business plan. In addition, her initiatives in enabling teams meet potential investors and advisors reflect her commitment.

We, at Heragen, are proud of our association with BCSC and thank them for their continued support. 

Naveen Chandramohan
Co-founder & CEO,
Heragen, Inc.