Hartford Business Journal

10 Hartford Business Journal • February 4, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com FOCUS: Bioscience Accelerator aims to advance CT's bioscience ambitions A fledgling, state-backed bioscience accelerator based in Branford — called the Accelerator for Biosci- ences in Connecticut, or ABCT — re- cently selected its second cohort of 12 startups that will receive consulting and other support in their efforts to commercialize drug and other medical treatment discoveries. The Q&A talks to Mary Howard, ex- ecutive director of Design Technologies LLC, overseer of the ABCT accelerator, which received a three-year commit- ment of up to $720,000 from CTNext, an offshoot of the state's quasi-public venture arm, Connecticut Innovations. Q. Can you tell us exactly what the Ac- celerator for Biosciences in Connecti- cut is and does, and how its founding came about? A. ABCT was founded in 2017 by CT- Next following research into successful accelerator programs within the biosci- ences community. CTNext attended the ELabNYC Pitch Day of the sister program to ABCT that we run in New York City, which convened hundreds of mentors, investors and entrepreneurs. ELabNYC has seen enormous suc- cess since its inception. It's graduated 116 ventures over the past six years and 72 percent of those companies have been funded, 25 percent have started second businesses, and 150 new patents have been filed and are enjoying healthy company growth. Because of our successful track record, CTNext asked us to bring our program to Connecticut to ensure companies coming out of the state see the same success. Importantly, proper nurturing of these companies helps to drive economic growth within the state. Since ELabNYC's inception in 2012, it is estimated that 210 new jobs have been created and approximately $16.8 million in wages are earned annually by the companies that move through the pro- gram. We hope to encourage that same economic growth within Connecticut. Q. You recently announced your sec- ond accelerator class. Can you tell us about the selected companies? A. We are really excited about this new diverse class of bioscience ventures. This year's cohort brings unique products and services that will advance the fields of biotech, pharmaceutical, medical de- vice, diagnostics and digital health. The selected startups were chosen via an extensive screening and inter- view process by an elite advisory team, consisting of leading scientists, active investors and business strategists. They are evaluated based on metrics such as strength of the team, fundabil- ity by investors, uniqueness of insights into the problems they are solving and their capacity to impact lives. The ventures will follow a rigor- ous curriculum of entrepreneurship Mary Howard Executive Director, Design Technologies LLC By Matthew Broderick Special to the Hartford Business Journal C aroline Dealy never expected to be an entrepre- neur. In fact, as an associate professor of recon- structive sciences, orthopedic surgery and cell biology at UConn Health, Dealy knew very little about the business of bioscience. "As scientists, we're trained to do re- search and solve problems, not neces- sarily to commercialize the outcomes," she said. But that approach has shifted, Dealy said, over the past decade, as universi- ties — with investment from state resources, private investors and phar- maceutical companies — have sought to transform academic discoveries into viable medical solutions. Dealy's first foray into biotech entre- preneurship came in 2010, when she co-founded Chondrongenics Inc. — a UConn-backed startup. The company developed a technique to convert human embryonic stem cells into cartilage cells, a therapeutic approach with the potential to treat osteoar- thritis, a degenerative disease caused by cartilage deterioration that effects nearly 21 million Americans. Work on that startup, Dealy said, evolved her approach to research. "Now, I think about how a research project might have value for a patient, or solve a medical problem because now I know there's a path to commer- cialization that wasn't clear to me." It also taught her the trials and tribulations of the commercialization process, which is a multi-year en- deavor with lots of risk and rounds of clinical trials that can cost millions. Chondrongenics developed five pat- ents related to Dealy's osteoarthritis treatment, but the startup is no longer active because investor funding has dried up. She said she is still seeking partners who might want to license those patents to move the technology forward. "I now have a better understanding [as a startup entrepreneur] of the types of experiments or the need for specific data that an investor or the Food and Drug Administration may want to see," Dealy said. "That might mean I design a different type of experiment than if [academically] I just wanted to know how a [particular] molecule works." That new approach has helped Dealy found her second startup under the UConn banner last August, called DeMay Bio. The company is focused on research that Dealy hopes holds commercial viability as a supplemental therapy for rheumatoid arthritis, an Continued on page 13 >> Continued on page 13 >> Business of Bioscience UConn-based startup, DeMay Bio, is Dealy's second act in entrepreneurship UConn pharmacy student Tyler Ackley helped DeMay Bio with its rheumatoid arthritis drug-discovery research. The startup is the brainchild of UConn professor Caroline Dealy, who is now working on her second attempt to commercialize a drug discovery. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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