The winners of an inaugural business plan competition – five promising biotech start-up companies – have been announced by Siena College and Albany Medical College.
The BACC Academy Biomedical Innovation Business Plan Competition awarded cash prizes totaling $25,000 and in-kind services based on business plans for innovative biomedical ventures.
The BACC Academy is an extension of the work of the Biomedical Accelerator and Commercialization Center (BACC) at Albany Medical College, in collaboration with Siena College. As the region’s first-of-its kind educational program, the BACC Academy is focused on creating biotech entrepreneurs who work to bring their science from “bench to bedside to business.”
“The BACC Academy is a shining example of two institutions leveraging their distinctive competencies. Siena excels in education, business, leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation. Albany Medical Center excels in education, biomedicine and innovation. We each have significant networks of professionals and experts from all relevant walks that, together, we drew upon for our BACC Academy faculty and speakers,” said Charles F. Seifert, Ph.D., dean of Siena College’s School of Business and professor of management, who was both a judge and instructor in the program.
Dr. Seifert also announced that, largely based on the success of the inaugural program, the BACC Academy would be offered again in the fall of 2017.
The award-winning companies are:
• First Prize, The Albany Medical College Innovation Award: OrthoGraft, founded by Atharva Poundarik, Ph.D., for developing biomaterials that stimulate the regeneration of bone for patients with bone defects in the spine, extremities and pelvis.
• The iSimulate Best Bench-to-Business Award: Praxis Biotechnology Inc., founded by Alejandro Adam, Ph.D., and Edward Wladis, M.D., to continue development of Praxis’ drug treatment to reduce skin inflammation associated with rosacea.
• The KeyBank Best Science Award: RiboDynamics LLC, co-founded by Rebecca Rose, Ph.D., and her advisor Dan Fabris, Ph.D. for software that creates unique signature profiles of organisms and has the potential to more rapidly and efficiently detect bacterial infection and contamination than any existing diagnostic tools.
• The Pisa Bio-Pharm Most Promising Technology Award: Deborah M. Busch, M.S., R.N., has developed a novel solution for ostomies – an example of bedside-to-business innovation.
• The Siena College Best Presentation Award: Vincent Arena of Sanguine Diagnostics, founded by Dominic Gelfuso. Sanguine is developing a low-cost, point-of-care paper device to diagnose a range of diseases and determine a patient’s blood type.
Albany Medical College and Siena College launched the BACC Academy in September 2016, with a 13-week program at Siena. Fifteen students participated in the session. The weekly classes were taught by Siena and Albany Med professors as well as researchers, attorneys, accountants and CEOs. The program focused on teaching business skills, leadership and management, and biomedical issues, including managing intellectual property, regulations and reimbursement.
Also representing Siena College on the selection panel was James P. Murtagh, Ph.D., M.B.A, associate professor of finance and chair of Siena’s finance department.
This inaugural BACC Academy class included Julia Dunbar ‘18, a computer science major from Cleveland, Ohio.
