Radial Genomics
Cambridge University Invention #1
Nikolaus Wenzl
[email protected]

On February 10, 2013 my mother passed away after a 3 year battle with breast cancer. Walking beside her on her journey was a life-changing experience for everyone in my family and it is an unfortunately all-too-common experience to have. Approximately 1 in 8 women is diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in her lifetime and though advances in treatment have facilitated great strides in increasing survival after diagnosis, 40,000 women still die from breast cancer in the US every year.

Diseases like breast cancer, which wage total war against patients, are not easily resolved by currently available technologies, and new solutions are essential to solve the challenges they present. To that end, the Avon Foundation, The National Cancer Institute and The Center for Advancing Innovation have partnered to organize a "first of a kind" international, university student-based startup competition: the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge.  Launched in October, 2013, this Challenge provides an opportunity for students to develop a business plan for an innovative technology and launch a startup with the goal of bringing to market novel and high-impact technologies to tilt the scales in the fight against breast cancer.

My team is one of the winners of the business plan phase of the Challenge, and we are excited to be able to take our startup, Radial Genomics Ltd., forward. Early diagnosis is considered by many the foundation of recent successes in breast cancer survival rates, but increased screening efforts are a double edged sword: more and more cancers are being caught at a curable stage, but some early stage cancers are also being caught that may never progress or pose a danger to the patient. This ambiguity poses a difficult challenge for doctors. No current tool in medicine specifically addresses the distinction between early stage cancer and invasive subtypes, which require more careful and aggressive treatment planning to resolve, potentially leading to unnecessary surgery and/or chemotherapy. These early stage cancers account for 20% of all breast cancer diagnoses, and 25-50% of these cases become invasive within 10 years. Moreover, many patients do not want to risk their lives on a bet that a cancer may not develop. This makes treatment planning all the more challenging since over-diagnosis and overtreatment are chronic problems in our healthcare system today, harming patients and costing our economy billions.

Radial Genomics Ltd. is working hard to provide the solution to this ambiguity in early stage cancer diagnosis. We are a cancer diagnostics company using proprietary technology to diagnose and guide treatment in breast cancer patients through a novel, quantitative method of assessing changes in a patient’s genetic material in response to cancer. It is our hope that with our technology, we can improve patients’ quality of life and outcomes by giving doctors and patients the most comprehensive understanding of a patients’ cancer going forward.

My team is happy to be developing Radial Genomics Ltd.. As a biochemist, I have never stopped learning and growing since this team, which includes finance, law, engineering, and medical specialties, came together. A startup is a team effort and we and our mentors are confident we have the skills and passion to make Radial Genomics Ltd. and the promise of our game-changing technology a reality.

My own experience with breast cancer was a study in guessing and hoping. My team and I want to make sure that future patients never have to guess again.

Contributed by Grecia Gonzalez

Orpheden Therapeutics
Northwestern University Invention #5
John Kuelper
[email protected]

Orpheden is at an exciting point in the genesis of our company and of our novel Granulysin-based dendritic cell therapy (DCT) platform. After our success at the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge, our company is “thinking big” with our DCT platform, developing a dynamic business that will quickly bring our therapy to women’s and underserved cancers that are in dire need of it. We are actively implementing our plan and are gaining traction with strategic investors, business plan competitions, and clinicians and scientists who can help drive our company through the preclinical and clinical phases. It is a time of great growth for Orpheden, and we are excited as we continue to realize tangible outcomes from the theoretical possibilities of our business plan. 

Pectogen Therapeutics, LLC
Tulane University Invention #3
Frank Glaser
[email protected]

Pectogen is thrilled to enter the third phase of the CAI Breast Cancer Start-up Competition.  We are dedicated to improving the lives of cancer patients by delivering innovative hydrogel-based delivery approaches to market.  Our flagship product combines surgery and oncology disciplines into a best-in-class reconstructive option with potential therapeutic benefit.  

Over the past couple of weeks, we have outlined a rough operating agreement, engaged with leading researchers to discuss short- and long-term R&D plans, spoken with other groups to discuss potential collaborations, and outlined the licensing process with the office of technology transfer.  

Our team, with its diverse set of backgrounds and skillsets, has put us on a path to an exclusive license for this patent which will enable us to drive this important technology towards market.

Frank Glaser
Brian Hasselfeld
Parastoo Khoshakhlagh

PCV Therapeutics
Washington University in Saint Louis Invention #2
Hirak Biswas
[email protected]

Personalized Cancer Vaccine Therapeutics is an outcome of the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge organized by the Center for Advancing Innovation, Avon Foundation and National Cancer Institute. The mission of PCV Therapeutics is to create cost-effective personalized cancer vaccines, specific for each patient, to treat the cancer and prevent future recurrence. We are a team of enthusiastic and dedicated scientists who are passionate about this cause.

Harnessing the immune system to outsmart cancers:

The human immune system is highly efficient in detecting and eliminating pathogens. At PCV Therapeutics, we harness this adaptation to develop vaccines capable of detecting and eliminating cancers by training the patient’s immune system to recognize the cancer as a foreign pathogen, rather than a cancer. Our lead vaccine candidate has the potential to actively eradicate the cancer (therapeutic) and also prevent future recurrence and metastasis (prophylactic).

Because all cancers evolve differently, we personalize our vaccines to specifically target the tumor cells unique to each patient. This personalized approach equips our vaccine with the versatility necessary to combat any cancer type. This is especially valuable for cancers lacking drugable targets, such as Triple Negative Breast Cancer, which is very aggressive and is currently associated with very poor prognosis.

Progress Report:

PCV Therapeutics is going through an exciting phase of growth. We are in the process of incorporating our company in the state of Missouri. Our business plan is undergoing careful refinement to enable our license application submission to the Office of Technology Transfer at NCI and also to apply for seed funding. We are collaborating with Dr. Dennis Klinman, the inventor of our technology, and other KOL’s to integrate their expertise with our ideas in order to successfully advance this technology. We have arranged meetings with potential seed investors and are in the process of recruiting an experienced management team as well.

Oncolinx, Inc.
Rutgers University Invention #6
Sourav Sinha
[email protected]

At Oncolinx, Inc, our vision is to translate science and innovation into better patient outcome. Through the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge, we have been given the unique opportunity to take a technology through the clinical development process to make a meaningful impact on health. Our invention specifically is a novel class of cancer toxins that have the potential to improve the safety and efficacy of current antibody therapies and other targeted therapeutics.  The novel cancer toxin could empower targeted therapeutic options for a variety of patient populations and multiple cancer indications. 

Thus far our team has developed a draft of the clinical development plan for the invention with mentors and experts in the oncology world, as well as connected with industry partners who are interested in using our technology on some of their current targets to improve the efficacy of their technologies, and in turn, help us generate data.  As a team we are excited to persevere down this path and collaborate with the Center for Advancing Innovation, Avon Foundation, Rutgers University, and the National Cancer Institute to make a positive impact in oncology.

Heragen
University of California, Berkeley Invention #8
Gerardo Ramirez
[email protected]

When Rosemarie Truman told us we were one of the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge winners, we were thrilled to further develop and commercialize a novel technology that will potentially help save thousands of lives. Is this what we have been doing the first month? – Not even close.

Step 1: “Should we buy our domain www.heragen.com today?” – Naveen, my co-founder, asked me a day before we incorporated. After thinking about it, I replied, “No. If nobody has bought it yet, it will be available tomorrow and we can buy it through the company.” Of course the next day we found out somebody had bought the domain and they were now selling it for $850 (it was $10 the day before). This was the start of our entrepreneurial odyssey.

During the first month, we bought expensive domains, talked to lawyers, chose a company name, created a logo, and started to build a website. We learned really quickly that we need to prioritize and manage time effectively. Also, we cannot expect to start working on the actual product immediately. There are many steps before starting, but every journey begins with the first step – buying the domain while it’s still cheap!

What I also learned during this first month is that many people are genuinely excited to help you - whether colleagues, friends, family, or somebody introduced to us, we have had the pleasure of working with many passionate and driven people that have given us advice and helped us along the way. I believe fostering startups is a core value of the Bay Area culture.

The road is still long and full of unforeseen obstacles so stay tuned for our next steps towards the finish line.

Gerardo Ramirez
Co-founder @ Heragen
[email protected]

Taxor Diagnostics
Tulane University Invention #10
Brian Yu
[email protected]

We are a team of enthusiastic medical students and researchers ready to leverage our medical, business, and biomedical research expertise in order to develop cancer diagnostics that will enable for more personalized treatment decisions.

Taxotest, our flagship product, is a diagnostic biomarker that can be applied to a patient’s tumor sample to predict whether she would benefit from taxane-based chemotherapy. By making this prediction, oncologists can spare patients from non-working chemotherapy regimens, save valuable treatment time and prevent uncomfortable side effects. We project that this product will lead to $365 million in annual savings from reductions in inefficient chemotherapy usage in the US.

We hail from the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, as part of a burgeoning biotechnology community led by the New Orleans Bioinnovation Center. Since entering the start-up phase of the competition, we have reached out to the National Cancer Institute, reviewed our research plans with the technology’s inventor, identified interested investors, and pursued additional technologies that fit our mission of bringing greater personalization to cancer treatments.

We are prepared to tackle the numerous challenges ahead. In the end, if we can bring better results and better quality of life to cancer patients by minimizing the uncertainties in their care, then we will consider our efforts to be vindicated.

Team Biographies

Brian Yu holds a BS in Economics with a minor in Philosophy from Tulane University. He is a medical student at the Tulane School of Medicine. Prior to medical school, he attended Boston University for his masters degree in medical sciences, where he developed an interest in biotechnology through coursework in translational research and technology commercialization. Brian has clinical research experience in psychiatry. His experiences with study design and biostatistics are valuable for the challenge of clinically validating our technology.

Richard Tang holds a BS in Biochemistry with a minor in Economics from Tulane University. He is a medical student at the Tulane School of Medicine. Before he matriculated into medical school, Richard worked for a year as the Fund Development Intern for a community development nonprofit, where he took charge of grant writing and board development initiatives, among other tasks. Richard has had significant laboratory research experience; he has previously worked on developing a nanoparticle-mediated chemotherapeutic, and is currently conducting research on IGF-1 signalling in atherosclerosis.

Muralidharan (“Murali”) Anbalagan holds both an MS and PhD in Environmental Toxicology from the University of Madras, India. He is a senior postdoctoral researcher at the Tulane Medical School Department of Structural and Cellular Biology. His research focuses on developing innovative oncology therapeutics for endocrine related cancers, and breast cancer in particular. Murali has been extensively published in peer-reviewed journals, and has also served as an invited reviewer for several others.

Mesopharm Therapeutics
Stanford University Invention #4
Ka Yam Chak
[email protected]

Entering the Start-up phase of the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge (http://breastcancerstartupchallenge.com), Mesopharm Therapeutics officially launches on April 7th, 2014.  Our goal is to revolutionize cancer therapies by combining state of the art therapeutics and theranostics.  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:

Breast Cancer is the most common cause of death in women (521 000 deaths in 2012), affecting 6.3 million people worldwide. WHO recently reported that breast cancer incidence has increased by more than 20%, while mortality has increased by 14% (Source:WHO) and called for immediate attention to address this sharp increase.

At Mesopharm, we envision to develop first-in-class biological therapies at a pre-clinical stage and accelerate their transition into the clinic. Our flagship drug candidates target specific transmembrane 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. 

KEY ACTIVITIES:

• Mesopharm launches on April 7th, 2014!!!!
  
• At the full gear on drafting business plan for submitting licensing application on April 15th, 2014.  
  
• Initiated engagement with the National Cancer Institute and Dr. Mitchell Ho (the inventor of the technology) to develop a CRADA (Collaborative Research and Development Agreement).  
  
• Have successfully secured full support of chemistry expertise on therapeutic drug development from the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre.   
  
• Arranged a series of meetings to seed funders and seasoned entrepreneurs.  
  

Our Team

BESPOKE Therapeutics
Wake Forest University Invention #7
Gonzo Estupinan
[email protected]

Hello! We are BESPOKE Therapeutics. What started as a business plan competition sponsored by NIH, Avon Foundation, and The Center for Advancing Innovation, has developed into a new and unique Biotech. Our mission is to improve the quality of life for people with cancer by advancing scientific research that keeps the patient in mind. Our goal is to change the way people treat cancer, and give hope to those who need it the most.

April is an exciting month for BESPOKE. Through conversations with key stakeholders, we are planning our optimal path for moving forward towards achieving our mission. We are assembling an advisory board and gaining access to funding that will help further our goals. By enhancing our business plan, we are ensuring that we are meeting the patients' needs in every market and making our first steps impactful. Thank you for joining us as we set off on this journey. 

We are BESPOKE Therapeutics

Advancing research.  Advancing medicine. Advancing lives.

PS. Lookout for our new site launching soon - www.Bespokebiotech.com.

ProVivox Inc.
McGill/GCRG Invention #9
Dmitri Kharitidi
[email protected]

The ProVivoX Inc. team

Our multidisciplinary team emerged thanks to the Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Startup Challenge. Before our venture as entrepreneurs, our team members worked either at universities as researchers occupying leadership positions or as employees for various companies. This diverse blend constitutes our unique corporate DNA and allows us to better tackle upcoming challenges.

ProVivoX Inc. has officially been incorporated in March 2014, which is most evidently an important milestone for our company. Creating a new biotech startup company brings uncertainty, and, to be honest, most of us did not know what to expect. One relevant insight we came upon during our exploration is that no technology or product survives initial contact with the real world (or the customer). We use this knowledge in our approach to validate and improve our product, as many other Lean enthusiast entrepreneurs do. Given that we pride ourselves on being extremely dedicated and committed to our work, we seek the best quality standards in all of our interactions. To do so, during the process of implementing a successful business plan, we constantly sought feedback from our advisory board, composed of judges, professors, physicians, colleagues, and mentors – everybody is a resource for this purpose.

The key to a successful startup is an ability to grow and adapt within a rapidly changing environment; thus, efficient communication becomes essential for survival. Our team dynamics are reinforced by keeping the same pace week after week, and maintaining cohesiveness among all the members. Luckily, we represent a great cultural fit and we feel that we have been able to easily and rationally reach a consensus when needed.

Business development and strategy

One of the biggest challenges that we experienced was prioritizing all the difficult tasks that need to be accomplished. Indeed, the success of ProVivoX Inc. hinges on the choices we made and will make as co-founders. Through this process, we have discovered launching a startup is immensely interesting and entirely different from a more standard office job. Our new responsibilities include refining the business plan, implementing our intellectual property plan, and executing the activities that will lead us to our first concrete endeavors as a legal company (incorporation, negotiating and signing research agreements, establishing partnerships, etc). Secondly, the best card in our hand was the intrinsic potential of our innovation: we aim to bring to the market a cutting-edge product by merging a new technology and novel strategies to provide better information to patients afflicted with cancer. In the long run, we believe that our success will be derived from a balanced sum of talent and inspiration. To reach our goals and put to market a game-changing innovation, we need to be looking for a lot more than just talent – for us, this is called passion.

Time management is also crucial at this moment of the challenge: we know that every hour counts. As a small company we have limited resources, so each one of us has committed a given amount of time each day to drive the process forward efficiently. New priorities arise every day, and we have to stay focused and committed to the time allotted for the startup company. This is particularly important when looking for funding as we must clearly communicate all details of our company’s position, the importance of investing in the startup at this moment, and where we expect to be as the company continues to grow. In this process we have identified different sources of funding, including (but not limited to) grants, incubator organizations, non-profit entrepreneurship organizations, local development centers, and innovation centers. These opportunities will allow us to fulfill our first round of capital. As we hoped, our unique value proposition has sparked curiosity from different organizations and experts that identified the potential of our business model.

Social media and raising awareness


We communicate the value of our company by using different social media channels, a strategy now widely used by big and small corporations. Facebook has helped us make ProVivoX and our participation in the Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge visible to our networks and allows for easy communication of daily updates within our team. We have also set up a project and a company profile on LinkedIn, where ProVivoX Inc. cofounders have updated their job roles on their personal profiles and have created a following for ProVivoX Inc. in social media. Twitter is also an outlet where we notify our followers about our news and we can also follow organizations that we consider relevant, including other Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge finalists. Our presence on YouTube is also relevant because of the elevator pitch video that was previously uploaded onto the Challenge channel. These social media outlets will be used extensively in the development of our startup and will be featured prominently on our own webpage, www.provivox.com. The not-so-secret to success is to constantly look for ways to do things better, faster, and cheaper. We intend put this methodology to work for patients, to provide a fast and efficient prognosis test at a fraction of the cost.

In a nutshell, during the last months our unique, talented and motivated team at ProVivoX Inc. has excelled at achieving the required milestones to bring to life a startup company whose primary goal is to make a lasting impact on the quality of life of patients afflicted with cancer.