Accelerating the dreams of entrepreneurs who are on a mission to make our lives healthier.
One of the best things about being an on-demand CFO for startups is the opportunity to work with multiple amazing entrepreneurs and helping them accelerate their dreams. I have been fortunate enough to have amassed a diverse portfolio of clients, with inspiring missions to change the world. These are companies whose teams come in every morning to work on technologies and products that will make our lives better. I can’t wait to see what this impressive group of entrepreneurs will achieve.
Here is a brief of what five of these amazing startups, all focused on applying technology to make us healthier, are on a mission to accomplish.
Audacity Therapeutics is the first public benefit pharmaceutical company. The audacious idea that inspires their work is to make sure drugs are priced to maximize public health, not private profits. Audacity’s pharmaceutical development programs focus on products that deliver significant patient impact regardless of whether they meet traditional pharmaceutical return hurdles. The company has identified its first several clinical development programs in areas of major unmet medical need.
Dune Medical Devices develops, manufactures, and commercializes innovative products that improve the effectiveness and outcome of cancer therapy by providing real-time tissue characterization systems to guide surgical and diagnostic decisions. Its proprietary Radio-Frequency (RF) Spectroscopy technology is used to identify cancerous tissue in real time, enabling immediate reaction by the physician during the procedure. Dune’s first commercially-available product, MarginProbe, gives breast surgeons greater confidence that they have successfully removed all the cancer in the first lumpectomy surgery. Future applications include a novel biopsy device as well as applications in other cancers.
EhmetDX is focused on the commercialization of the Mammoknife, the world’s first self-shielded, linac-based breast cancer radiotherapy device that will raise the standard of treatment for women globally. This patented technology is designed to allow whole- or partial-breast irradiation or IMRT while sparing critical structures such as lung, heart and skin, in addition to lowering the whole body radiation dose. The commercial MammoKnife will integrate imaging capabilities, such as cone-beam CT, and will be compatible with existing treatment planning software. The MammoKnife qualifies for the 510(k) regulatory clearance pathway and should not require clinical trials. Moreover, reimbursement codes in the United States for the therapies delivered by the machine are already in place.
Immuneering’s proprietary data-driven drug discovery platform makes pharmaceutical R&D faster and more effective, using Artificial Intelligence and other advanced algorithms. It applies this platform to discover and develop new medicines for itself and in collaboration with partners and also to provide world-class bioinformatics services. These efforts involve making high-throughput data as useful as possible, and build on its 10+ years of experience working with leading pharmaceutical companies. In just the past 18 months, Immuneering has built a pipeline of five novel products with blockbuster potential in oncology, dementia and metabolic disease.
Vyome Therapeutics is an innovation-driven, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, which has novel platform technologies and a deep pipeline of novel drugs for antibiotic resistant acne, other opportunistic skin pathogens and anti-fungal agents in dermatology. The company’s lead molecule, which targets the substantial unmet need in the drug resistant acne prescription market, completed a proof of concept clinical study at the end of 2017 with desirable results and phase 2B is currently being initiated. Its next three products are currently in preclinical studies. Vyome has raised over $50 million in funding from an impressive group of venture capital investors.
I hope these five stories inspire you. Like most early-stage companies, these startups are always looking for customers, employees, investors, partners and others that can help them accomplish their mission. Reach out to me (mkaswan@burklandassociates.com) if you’d like to learn more or get an introduction.
Image courtesy of Christopher Michel