| GSAS
Harvard Biotech Club Business Plan Competition |
The 8th
Annual
Biotechnology Business Plan Competition
Sponsored by:

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2007 Competition Entrants |
Note: Some entrants have requested that their summaries be kept confidential.
cVision - First Place
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Contact: Vikram Aggarwal, vaggarwal@jhu.edu
cVision™ Medical Solutions, Inc. is an R&D start-up company that specializes in cutting-edge ultrasound solutions. We are poised to make significant commercial gains through our flagship product, cVein™, which offers a simple and noninvasive solution to measure central venous pressure (CVP). As ultrasound-guided therapies continue to revolutionize healthcare technology, cVision™ Medical Solutions, Inc. aims to design a full suite of products catered to the untapped and highly profitable market of diagnostic ultrasound technology.
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Angiologix - Second Place
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Contact: Maria Merchant, mariamerchant@gmail.com
Angiologix Inc., a medical diagnostic device company, is dedicated to human cardiovascular health. Its patented products accurately identify patients at risk for heart attack, by diagnosing the endothelial dysfunction. Currently, there are no diagnostic tests that can accurately identify patients who will experience heart attacks. In the US, out of 650,000 patients a year who experience first-time heart attack, an estimated 200,000 patients are not detected by the existing diagnostic tools. Millions of people do not know their level of risk for heart attack. Angiologix’ accurate, non-invasive, point-of-care diagnostic products will warn often-unsuspecting patients of their being at risk for heart attack, and, therefore, will help save lives and millions of dollars in the healthcare costs currently spent to treat patients with heart attacks. The company’s goal is to serve its customers – clinical researchers, physicians and patients – by providing them with tools for the assessment and monitoring of the risk for heart attack.
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Vitrimark - Third Place
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Contact: Arijit Bose, bosea@egr.uri.edu
Vitrimark is an imaging company that uses cryogenic transmission electron microscopy to identify structural biomarkers for the early detection of disease, and exploit their utility for integration in the drug development process. Biomarkers are observable characteristics of biological or clinical samples that indicate progression to disease, drug response or toxicity. The identification of biomarkers is expected to relieve the deepening productivity crisis in the pharmaceutical industry by significantly lowering drug development costs. It will do this by allowing early and cost-effective go/no-go decisions, permitting patient stratification, helping in the analysis of clinical trials and finding niche markets for new drugs under development, or drugs already commercialized. Vitrimark’s mission is to discover structural biomarkers for prostate and breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and in the longer term, Alzheimer’s disease. It will build a comprehensive biomarker patent portfolio surrounding its technology and their applications and then license the utility of these biomarkers to clients (pharmaceutical companies) for use in their clinical drug development processes.
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Oligomerix
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Contact: James Moe, jmoe@oligomerix.com
OLIGOMERIX Inc., is a biopharmaceutical company that is focused on developing novel drug discovery targets and therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. It was founded in 2006, and was spun out of Q-RNA, Inc., where its core technologies were developed. It has strong IP for its soluble tau protein oligomer technologies for drug discovery and biomarker development. Accumulation of soluble tau causes neuronal loss and memory impairment in mouse models, thus, compounds inhibiting the formation of tau oligomers or disrupting them may inhibit neurodegenerative diseases associated with tau. . A series of compounds that prevent or reverse oligomer formation are under development for pre-clinical studies. Furthermore, antibodies against tau oligomers are being developed for drug discovery and for biomarkers to stage disease progression, necessary for testing drug efficacy. The company plans to enter into collaboration with major pharmaceutical players to take its lead compounds into clinical studies. Moreover, it will seek to leverage its proprietary reagents such as oligomer specific antibodies, and its discovery systems for early revenue. The company is also seeking additional funding through both government and foundation grants. Its current investors will lead the next financing round.
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Coromedic
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Contact: Rabin Gerrah, rabin@coromedic.com
Coromedic is a privately owned biomedical start up company working to manufacture devices and develop techniques to facilitate coronary artery bypass surgery in a minimally invasive technique. The company’s flagship products, the proximal anastomosis device, the distal anastomosis device and the internal mammary artery harvester are the first in a set of invaluable tools aimed at easing the complications associated with the conventional surgery. We have worked to design and build prototypes of our products and develop a business strategy, consulting with numerous professionals to assess the feasibility and utility of our product and business model. The process of idea protection and patent application is ongoing, a provisional patent for one of our products, the proximal anastomosis devices is in place and the application for patent protection of all our products is underway. The prototype of our first device, the proximal anastomosis device is built and tested in the wet lab. We are currently working on prototype assembly of our second and third products, after which lab animal experiments in the appropriate facilities will take place and then approval for clinical trials and their undertaking will commence.
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McMillin Pharma
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Contact: Douglas W. McMillin, Douglas_McMillin@dfci.harvard.edu
McMillin Pharma is a startup company seeking to market a breakthrough high throughput screening method for testing drug libraries in early stage drug development. The technology and screening services of the company are used to predict which drugs may be more effective in later stages of the drug development process by modeling the interactions between tumors and their microenvironment.
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MAD Nanolayers
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Contact: Christopher J Bettinger, cjbetti@mit.edu
MAD Nanolayers™ provides a unique and patented coating technology for delivering multiple agents sequentially and with precise control over dosage and timing. This is a platform technology with many therapeutic and non-therapeutic applications and whose disruptive feature is not available in any other coating technology today. MAD Nanolayers’ primary offering will be a therapeutic coating for orthopedic implants that delivers painkillers, antibiotics, and growth factors to minimize post-surgical complications and eliminates subsequent re-intervention procedures, resulting in significant cost-savings to the hospitals and improved quality of life for patients.
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SD Nanosciences
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Contact: Terry Chase Hazell, terrychase@sdnanosciences.com
One third of the fifty million deaths worldwide this year will be caused by infectious diseases. University of Maryland spin-off company, SD Nanosciences’ novel patent-pending vaccine nanotechnology “Triad” will expand the $9 B vaccine industry’s ability to combat these diseases. Vaccine companies can attach their vaccine ingredients to Triad nanoparticles in a controlled ratio and 3-D conformation to closely mimic deadly bacteria enabling effective, stable, vaccines without toxicity. We’ve identified 10 target vaccines—each with an annual market of 1/2 Billion dollars. We are demonstrating Triad vaccines for two difficult diseases: meningitis B and Tularemia. Our exit strategy is to be acquired by vaccine company.
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Medicor
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Contact: Keun ho Lee, klee267@uwo.ca
Medicor Biosciences, founded in 2006 is a development-stage company focused on drug discovery for combating cancer. The founding scientists are leaders in an emerging class of anti-hormone drugs that are designed to block the relaxin hormone cellular signaling pathways in a number of different cancer types. Using the company’s Relaxofen technology platform, therapeutic candidates are generated by engineering the natural relaxin peptide to display antagonistic properties. Through pre-clinical development and clinical trials, Medicor Biosciences plans to develop and potentially license the technology so that the therapeutics can be available for cancer patients as an anti-hormone therapy to impair the growth and spread of the disease.
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Hummune
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Contact: Subhabrata Biswas, Subhabrata_Biswas@dfci.harvard.edu
Hummune Solutions has developed a unique human- mouse platform ‘ChimMouse’ which expresses a functional human immune system that can be modulated to produce human antibodies in both composition and context. With its long term objective of becoming a major player in the areas of therapeutic human mAbs, generic biologicals and personalized medicine, the company has a strategic business model in place that will allow the pursuance of short term objectives without losing the focus of the primary market. With its “ChimMouse Advantage” the company will provide custom research grade human antibodies and drug/vaccine testing services. The revenue generated will be invested in its subsequent development of biotherapeutics. A research sharing program with academic researchers to use the ChimMouse as an animal model will also be in place. This will potentially enrich the company’s R&D portfolio in addition to providing credibility to the technology platform.
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Scission
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Contact: Sashank Reddy, sashank_reddy@student.hms.harvard.edu
Scission Pharmaceuticals is dedicated to the discovery and development of first-in-class, broad-spectrum antibiotics to combat the alarming spread of drug-resistant bacteria. Scission’s team has identified a series of highly conserved proteins essential for bacterial cell division. Lead compounds developed against one of these proteins show tremendous promise in killing a wide range of bacteria. Scission scientists will develop these molecules into more potent and selective drugs whilst continuing to screen for additional leads using our patented screening platform. Ultimately, Scission’s aim is to develop a suite of first-in-class compounds that will be agents of choice against refractory bacterial infections.
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Judging Criteria
For additional information about the
Biotechnology Business Plan Competition, the Biotech Club, or becoming
a sponsor, please contact directors@thebiotechclub.org
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Judges
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Dean Banks
Vice President
Highland Capital Partners |
Omar Amirana
Investment Manager
Oxford Bioscience Partners |
David Berry
Principal
Flagship Ventures |
Kevin Bitterman
Principal
Polaris Venture Partners |
Zach Jonasson
Senior Principal
Seaflower Ventures |
Scott Silverman
Principal
Atlas Ventures |
David Steinberg
Principal
PureTech Ventures |
Steven Wardell
Executive Vice President
IC Sciences Corp. |
Peter B. Finn, Esq.
Senior Partner
Rubin and Rudman LLP |
Steven Tregay
Managing Director
Novartis Option Fund |
Sanuj Ravindran
Principal
Radius Ventures |
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