Hartford Business Journal

30 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | April 11, 2022 TECH 25 Lambda Vision CEO Nicole Wagner works in the biotech company's Farmington lab. Nest Collaborative has developed a telehealth lactation consultant service for new mothers. Lambda Vision has sights set on artificial retina to aid those with degenerative eye diseases By Norman Bell Hartford Business Journal Contributor T he prospects for Lambda Vision are sky high. Quite literally. The firm's signature product — an artificial retina that could change the lives of thousands with degenerative eye diseases — is under development aboard the International Space Station. Working with logistics provider Space Tango of Lexington, Ky., Lambda Vision has placed a shoebox-sized automated lab in orbit. The theory is that the microgravity of the space station could be the best place to actually manufacture the tiny, layered protein device Lambda Vision hopes to implant in the back of the human eye. The concept comes from the work of Robert Birge, a UConn chemistry professor and innovator in the field of light sensitive proteins. Today, he's a member of the firm's board of directors and carries the title of founder. By using bacteriorhodopsin, a light-activated protein, Lambda Vision's artificial retina hopes to restore functional sight for patients with degenerative diseases, including age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. Current treatments can only slow the progression of the diseases that can result in blindness. But there's a long road ahead before Lambda Vision's product can reach patients, CEO Nicole Wagner cautions. Tests on rats proved the concept and tests on blind pigs are next before the Food and Drug Administration allows any human testing. Even if the artificial retina hits only green lights in testing, it's likely to be into the 2030s before a product is commercially available, Wagner says. And getting there is going to take a lot of money. So far, Lambda Vision has been working on a mix of grant money and small seed funding. In 2020, NASA provided $5 million as a commercialization grant to explore the idea of manufacturing in space over a series of flights. In 2018, Connecticut Innovations invested $500,000. A 2014 grant from the National Institutes of Health funded proof-of-concept testing on rats. Raising an additional $20 million to $25 million in funding is next for Wagner as she increases staff. But she acknowledges money is only one of the challenges ahead. She's been trying to recruit research technicians and engineers and is finding the talent pool lacking. Part of the problem is the absence of a specialized eye research center in Connecticut. She credits Connecticut's supportive ecosystem with helping Lambda Vision reach this stage. She's on the board of CTNext and is involved in mentor and accelerator programs. Still, she wonders if a move out of state might be necessary to propel Lambda Vision to the next level. Wagner expects to do clinical tests first on patients with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease affecting about 100,000 Americans. The 10% who are in end stage could form the first human test group, she explains. Commercially, however, the larger market is those with age-related macular degeneration. Estimates put that number at more than 11 million Americans and almost 200 million globally. And of course, there's the issue of scaling manufacturing in orbiting commercial labs, a step that likely is some years away too. Nest Collaborative's telehealth offering helps new mothers overcome lactation challenges By Norman Bell Hartford Business Journal Contributor A manda Gorman dismisses the idea that she's an entrepreneur. To hear her tell it, she's a nurse and mother who encountered a problem and fashioned a solution. In the process, she mastered writing effective appeal letters to insurance companies. The story of Nest Collaborative is a bit more nuanced. After eight years as a traveling emergency room nurse, Gorman found she liked San Francisco and settled in. She went back to school to earn her certification as a pediatric nurse practitioner, got married and had a baby. That's when she discovered pre-natal literature hadn't prepared her to deal with lactation problems. It just wasn't as easy and natural as she'd expected, and internet research wasn't the answer. Frantic, she finally turned to a certified lactation consultant who helped her solve the problem — at $300 an hour. The more she talked to new mothers, she discovered her experience wasn't unique. There had to be a better way and the idea of Nest Collaborative was born. The math was daunting: there are just 10,000 certified lactation consultants and 3.2 million babies born each year. The Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — mandated insurers would pay for lactation training, her research found. It just wasn't happening. It was 2017 and she and her husband, also a medical professional, had moved to Maryland where Gorman made some contacts with a tech incubator. The wheels were starting to turn as she built contacts with lactation consultants, learned the basics of starting an online business and targeted New York City as a place to test market Nest. By 2019, the family had moved to Farmington to be closer to her husband's family, and Gorman found startup mentorship and financing support from CTNext and Connecticut Innovations. A pair of lawsuits resulted in insurers being ordered to pay for lactation training. Not long after, the pandemic made teleconferences an everyday occurrence and turned telemedicine into an acceptable practice. The solution was obvious, Gorman maintains. Her team of lactation consultants started booking online appointments and she started writing letters challenging insurers who declined to pay. In 2020, she set out to raise $300,000 in startup funding. Instead, she raised $2.1 million. Another $2.1 million wasn't far behind. Now she is heading out to raise more in a Series A funding. Today, Nest has 40 consultants in 20 states providing services to all 50 states. Same-day appointments are available from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Consultations are available in a variety of languages — Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Portuguese, Urdu. Next up are Tagalog and Mandarin. Insurers are paying rates comparable to a primary care provider visit, Gorman says. And Bloomfield-based Cigna Corp. has named Nest as a provider within its employee benefit program. Yes, it has become a business, Gorman acknowledges, but really it's still just a pediatric nurse practitioner using technology to get a neglected job done. At A Glance Company: Lambda Vision | Industry: Biotechnology Top Executive: Nicole Wagner, CEO & President | HQ: Farmington Company Website: lambdavision.com At A Glance Company: Company: Nest Collaborative | Industry: Health technology Top Executive: Amanda Gorman, CEO & Founder | HQ: Farmington Company Website: NestCollaborative.com | Phone Number: 888-598-1554 PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Amanda Gorman

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