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46 | DOING BUSINESS IN CONNECTICUT | 2018 2018 | DOING BUSINESS IN CONNECTICUT | 46 about market size, learning about how to build a strong team and a board of advisers, and the financial side of running a company, as well as some of the legal pieces," Wagner said. "From there, we participate in a virtual session once a week with a coach. We go through individual pieces of our particular business model, the coach provides feedback, and we talk about challenges and problems that we may encounter." Many startups in the ABCT program are looking for better business networking connections, Howard pointed out. "It's hard to find some of these people, and it's hard as a small company to get the attention of both bigger organizations that they might want to work with, and specialty experts from some of these technical areas. There's quite a number of special people that they need to connect to and that mentoring, those connections, that networking, is something that they're all looking for." ABCT participant Ferenc Fazekas, director of business development at Vanessa Research Inc., said the program "gave great new insights of actually how one should run a start-up, and how to build business within a startup." Fazekas' firm is developing a product called SolAware, which it describes as a "sun safety educational product for raising real-time awareness about the invisible dangers of sun overexposure," using digital technology. "I think for many of these life-science companies who have a scientific or engineering background, that's one of the biggest challenges, to shift from their laboratory or the engineering benchwork to the real developing of the business aspect of the start-up life," Fazekas said. "I think that's one of the biggest values in the program. Connecticut is actually supportive in many levels of the entrepreneurship, and they are open to have start-up companies starting their businesses and growing their business here. And we don't necessarily need to go to Boston or New York to succeed. We can run our businesses at a way lower cost in Connecticut, compared to those two big cities." The ABCT team selected 12 teams to join the inaugural 2018 Class of the ABCT program and to accelerate the development of their technologies into successful businesses. Ventures technologies were developed at UConn, Yale, Quinnipiac, Weill Cornell, NYU and Columbia research institutions. All of the accepted start-ups have already received funding and are now seeking broader mentor networks for fundraising and team building. THEY ARE: AlloMek: A small molecule based therapeutics for rare diseases led by Uday Khire. B2D2: A device to diagnose concussions led by Barry Kosofsky. CalRegen: A protein (bio-therapeutic) calreticulin, for tissue regeneration, led by Leslie Gold in affiliation with NYU. Cytosolix: A small-molecule tumor targeted chemotherapy platform, led by John Deacon in affiliation with Yale. Irrashional: An antidote for poison ivy led by Madalina Ene. Lambda Vision: A protein-coated retinal implant led by Nicole Wagner of UConn Health Center. LifestyleCX: A senior care personal matching service, led by Terri Sullivan. Mission Biomedical Scientific: A wearable monitoring device to monitor changes in metabolism on a continuous basis, led by Frank Swenson. Orthomedix: A device to address the unmet implant fixation and infection control needs of the orthopedic surgeon, led by Jim Walls. Shoreline Biome: A microbiome assay and analysis software, led by Thomas Jarvie. SOLaware: A sun safety educational product for raising real- time awareness about the invisible dangers of sun overexposure through digital technology, led by Ferenc Fazekas of Vanessa Research. Vesselon: A drug delivery platform led by Rhodemann Li. Ferenc Fazekas, director of business development at Vanessa Research Inc. HEALTH & BIOPHARMA