MetroWest495 Biz

16 MetroWest495 Biz | May 2014 10 To wATCH B arbara Finer is, arguably, the most influential person in the MetroWest technology commu- nity. An entrepreneur with a STEM background, Finer is the guiding force behind Tech- SandBox — the region's first tech incubator — which opened on South Street in Hopkinton late last summer. Finer founded TechSandBox, her sixth startup, to serve as a place for tech entrepreneurs to work, network and receive mentoring at affordable rates. Until TechSandBox opened (first at Becker College's Southborough campus before the Hopkinton location was leased), facilities of this kind were only found within the Route-128 belt and in Boston and Cambridge. Less than a year after its founding, TechSandBox is housing seven start-up firms, and has become a hotspot for networking and professional development events for the industry. About 40 active volunteers from area businesses help by offering free mentoring ser- vices. Finer notes that many industry veterans who may be mulling self-employment call MetroWest home, and that's what makes an incubator a commodity in the region. Though Finer believes she's drawing from a strong technology community, she said MetroWest has historically lacked a common, regional identity. She hopes her incubator will help change that. "This is part of what I'm trying to do, is cohere the area," Finer said. Finer is probably as qualified as anyone to help build a more unified MetroWest. She was born in Dorchester but has lived in Hudson for many years, and her last business — a consulting firm called QuiVivity — was based in Marlborough. She also has vital connections to neighboring technology communities, serving as co-chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, which helps entrepre- neurs with business development. And until recently, she served on the board for Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Venture Forum. In addition to her work at TechSandBox, Finer rounds out her focus, teach- ing business and entrepreneurship courses at Brandeis University and Becker College. n BArBArA finer Founder and CEo, techsandBox By eMily Micucci D r. Michael Kauffman, CEO of Natick pharmaceutical startup Karyopharm Thera- peutics Inc., entered the medical field because he wanted to help people. But he soon discovered that available treatments often fell short of meeting patients' needs. "I was frankly a bit frustrated that we weren't able to make better progress in medicine," said Kauffman, 50, a rheumatologist who practiced at Massachusetts General Hospital. Meanwhile, Kauffman saw that scientific progress was growing by "leaps and bounds," even though it didn't quickly translate to better medical treatments. So he traded his path in academic medicine for the pharmaceutical world. Kauffman, a Newton resident, viewed it as an opportunity to impact many people world- wide, and he's glad he made the switch. During the time he was completing his medical training, Kauffman said, treatments made patients very sick, and only a few got better. These days, treatments have become more ef- fective and side effects are more treatable, Kauffman said. "We can really start to think about people living with cancer rather than dying of cancer… and an increasing number of people are cured," Kauffman said. Karyopharm launched in 2009, based on the research of Kauffman's busi- ness partner, Sharon Shacham. An expert in computational drug design, Shacham designed a compound, known as KPT-330, that targets a par- ticular protein crucial to fighting cancer, and clinical trials have shown the drug's ability to kill cancer cells in patients with hard-to-treat types of leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Meanwhile, Kauffman oversaw the successful launch of Karyo- pharm's initial public offering in the fall, which generated $125 million for the company, about twice what was expected. Kauffman attributed the success, in part, to receptive capital markets after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxed standards for drug approvals. That, he noted, has helped make investments in biotech easier. For his part, Kauffman just looks forward to the day KPT-330 is widely available as a commercial drug. "We're moving along as fast as possible," Kauffman said. n miCHAel KAuffmAn CEo, Karyopharm therapeutics inc. By eMily Micucci

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