Startups pitch biotech ideas at NewYorkBIO event in Rochester

NewYorkBIO, a leading advocate for the life science community in New York State, hosted a Mini-Pitch Day for early-stage life science and biotech companies at NextCorps on Tuesday.

The event drew 10 start-ups to present their company pitches to a three-judge panel in two sessions. NewYorkBIO hosts 4-5 of these types of events a year, with the goal of helping the companies get better at telling their stories and putting them in contact with people who could help expand their network.

“People aren’t in this room making invest or no invest decisions,” NewYorkBIO CEO Jennifer Hawks Bland said. “But if the companies don’t have these opportunities, it’s going to take them much longer to get to the next step.”

Companies applied to participate in Tuesday’s event. Those that were selected were paired with a mentor to work on their pitches. The 10 start-ups were:

• Auspex Medix LLC, with Founder Wenyao Xu presenting on their Speech Annotation and Transcription Enhancer.
• Bella Biologics, Inc., a gene editing biotech start-up with a pitch from CEO Skyler Newberry.
• DUB Therapeutics Inc., with Founder and CEO Tere Williams presenting on the company’s solutions to fight ocular diseases.
• Haystack Medical, with Co-Founder and CEO Aykut Aksit presenting on the company’s proprietary delivery method for inner ear therapies.
• ITrakNeuro Inc., with a pitch from CEO Janet L. Paluh on technology that uses artificial intelligence to help health care providers more easily analyze MRI and MRA data and make diagnoses.
• ExPrimary, Inc., with a pitch from CEO Sean Higgins on leveraging advanced technologies to improve the performance of bioanalysis.
• Portico Health, LLC, with Founder Greg Gdowski presenting on reimagining cervical laminoplasty to make it a more attractive option for treating cervical spinal stenosis.
• sxRNA Technologies Inc., with a pitch from CEO Scott Tenenbaum on RNA nanoswitches that allow RNA therapeutics to become tissue-specific.
• Triton Bio, Inc., with a pitch from CEO and Founder Lorenzo D’Amico on a smart incubator that automatically produces publication-ready images and videos of biological activity in Petri dishes.
• Tropocan, Inc., with Founder and CEO Evgenii Boriushkin presenting on the company’s efficient method of drug delivery and treatment of brain disorders.

The judges selected DUB Therapeutics as the winner of the first session and sxRNA Technologies Inc. and Tropocan Inc. as the winners of the second session. All three winners received free registration to NewYorkBIO’s Innovation Summit on Sept. 30 in New York City.

NewYorkBIO’s mission is to support the development and growth of the life science industry in the state.

“Think of us as a specialized chamber of commerce,” Bland said. “Every type of company in the life sciences ecosystem is represented in our association. I find it really important to have the perspectives of everyone involved.”