ELabNYC, the Entrepreneurship Lab NYC, an initiative of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and led by Design Technologies, today announced the 7th cohort of emerging biosciences ventures invited to participate in its competitive annual business accelerator program. Twenty high-potential companies will participate in the six-month intensive program, which includes business education to develop fundable business plans and support from a professional mentoring and alumni network. All startups receive an entrepreneur coach, access to active business professionals and preparation support to pitch to investors.
The selected startups were chosen via an extensive screening and interview process. An elite advisory team, consisting of leading scientists, active investors and business strategists, evaluated this class of ventures based on metrics such as strength of the team, uniqueness of insights into the problems they are solving and their capacity to revolutionize the life sciences industry.
The 2019 ELabNYC cohort participants and ventures include:
- Aleksandra Gosiewski, Aaron Nessar, Tessa Callaghan, (Independent) AlgiKnit is creating compostable, readily available and cost-competitive yarns that are plant-based, utilizing sources like kelp.
- Anaïs Rameau, Milan Gunasekera (Weill Cornell) MyophonX is an individually tailored wearable device that applies machine learning to silent articulation to restore speech in patients with limited phonation capacity.
- Andreas Keller (Rockefeller University) Keller is developing a digital diagnostic device for testing olfactory function which is an early symptom of neurodegenerative diseases affecting 10% of the population.
- Chichao Chen, Lingbo Zhang (MSKCC) Vessel Scientific’s technology is a therapeutic strategy to treat acute myeloid leukemia that works by disrupting cancer metabolism and proliferation.
- Cira Cardaci, Mican Meneses (Independent) MenoPal has created a wearable device with an integrated digital health platform to empower menopausal women to self-manage their symptoms with low risk.
- Eleanor Haglund (Independent) Halo Mountain’s therapeutic candidate treats Alzheimer’s disease by promoting uric acid production, fighting inflammation and oxidative stress.
- Elif Alpoge (Independent) Qlear Chemicals has developed novel permeabilization and optical clearing reagents for 3D imaging of intact, grossed anatomic pathology samples.
- Jon Zaikowski, Benjamin Young (Columbia University) CapCell Biologics is treating rare diseases with implants composed of engineered cells in a protective mesh capsule.
- Joongheum Park, Laurence Coman, Yair Saperstein (Columbia University/ SUNY Downstate) AvoMD’s modules curate highly relevant clinical knowledge using conversational user interface carefully designed for clinical providers, mimicking consultations with clinical specialists.
- Jose Quiroz, George Georgiev, Jeetayu Biswas, Ryan Malonis (Einstein) CapCell Biologics isolates human monoclonal antibodies against Chikungunya Virus Glycoprotein using single B-cell sorting technology.
- Khatija Ali, Furwa Hussein (Independent) BioSapien develops a novel biodegradable drug-eluting mesh which provides long-term slow release.
- Kiyan Rajabi, Darya Moldavskaya (Weill Cornell) ReverCare connects people caring for elderly loved ones to geriatric care experts who help them craft personalized, long-term care plans.
- Kurt Yaeger (Mount Sinai) MediGram is developing a medical language recognition and error correction algorithm using artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency of physician workflow and reduce physician burnout.
- Nan Xiao (Independent) AdviceCoach is a HIPAA-compliant SaaS platform that makes it easy, fast and affordable for healthcare providers to publish mini-apps (Playbooks) that give each patient a unique treatment plan.
- Nathan Stevens (Independent) Instras Scientific designs and develops a low-cost dip coater kit for thin film biosensor research.
- Peilin Zhang (Independent) PZM Diagnostics provides testing for antibacterial antibodies with the goal to change the direction of diagnosis and therapy of Crohn’s and other autoimmune disease.
- Rotem Lev-Zwickel (Independent) Agamon partners with hospitals, structures their textual clinical data using natural language processing and provides tools and services for a faster, efficient and scalable way to access clinical data and insights.
- Seth Goodman (Columbia University) SiteRx is the first virtual clinical trial site focused on building the bridge between clinical research and clinical care.
- Sonia Gonzalez (CUNY) StudentBody leverages AI and natural language technologies to encourage good mental health in young people early in life and will target college students.
- Sunit Jariwala (Einstein) The ASTHMAXcel mobile application is a patient-facing self-management tool for asthma with customizable features, including tailored algorithms, animated educational videos, adherence support messages, games, self-assessments and patient/provider dashboards.
Members of past cohorts have accomplished important milestones since graduating from ELabNYC. One alumni venture, CareSpeak, which developed a mobile-first patient communication system, was recently acquired by OptimizeRx for approximately $8.5 million. Other ELabNYC alumni include Charlotte D’Hulst, whose MouSensor company raised $3.3 million in its seed round, and Linh Le, founder of Bonbouton, who received $50,000 in the FuzeHub Commercialization Competition of 2018. To see a list of past participants of ELabNYC, please visit: http://abct.co/participants/.
“Program alumni and their ventures continue to grow and make an impact in the field of biosciences and beyond,” said Mary Howard, ELabNYC Program Manager and Executive Director of Design Technologies. “The ELabNYC team is proud to play an instrumental part in helping these companies grow and succeed.”
By helping to nurture promising young companies, ELabNYC indirectly helps contribute to job, real estate and economic growth of the state, according to its “ELabNYC 2018 Impact Report” issued in August of this year. Since the program’s inception in 2012, it is estimated that 210 new jobs have been created and approximately $16.8 million in wages have been earned by the companies that moved through the program. To access the full report, visit: https://bit.ly/2SkDDpb.
This year, the program is pleased to welcome two new members to its team: Karolyn Rancourt Chamberlin as Head of Mentorship and Heidi Anderson as Head of Coaching.
Source: ELabNYC Bioscience Accelerator Program Announces 2019 Cohort of Life Science Companies | Benzinga
