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Overcoming Startup Challenges
 On February 16, 2012,
SoCalBio’s Women Work & Wisdom (W3) group hosted their first
mixer at the Alfred Mann Institute in Santa Clarita, featuring
insightful presentations on Startup Challenges by female biotech
executives, Shenda Baker, PhD, President and COO of Synedgen and
Elena Medo, Chairman and CEO of Neolac, Inc.
SoCalBio W3 extends its
thanks to Neelima Firth, Diane Palumbo and the entire Alfred Mann
Institute for hosting the meeting. The event was well attended,
and the presentations were thought-provoking and valuable to all
those currently involved in start-up and emerging company projects
as well as those who aspire to become biotech entrepreneurs.
The evening started with a
warm welcome from John Petrovich, Senior Vice President of
Business Development at the Alfred Mann Foundation (AMF). Mr.
Petrovich gave an overview of AMF and its affiliated companies and
research partners, and talked about some of the clinical projects
in the areas of neurology and diabetes in which the Foundation is
currently involved.
Dr. Baker presented on her
company’s start-up challenges, funding through NIH grants,
current pipeline, and partnering opportunities. She highlighted
the orphan drug products Synedgen is developing for treating
patients with cystic fibrosis and head and neck cancer. She also
shared the company’s products for the veterinarian market, which
have moved this start-up into the category of a revenue-generating
company. Synedgen’s assets include a fully operational GMP
manufacturing facility, an in-house scientific team for drug
development, a solid toxicology profile for agents in the pipeline
and a strong IP protection portfolio. The company is open to
partnering opportunities including marketing, distribution,
licensing, outright sale of field of use and co-development with
other companies.
Elena Taggart Medo, who
described herself as a serial entrepreneur talked about her
twenty-five years of experience founding and raising funds in
excess of $31 million dollars for various companies. Among other
companies, Ms. Medo founded White River Concepts, Prolacta
Bioscience, North American Instruments, and Neolac. She presently
focuses her entrepreneurial talents at Neolac, which is developing
a first sterile, freeze-dried biologically-active human milk
formula for pre-term babies. Ms. Medo encouraged fledgling
entrepreneurs in the bioscience realm to consider a range of
things in dealing with start-up challenges, including: identifying
and achieving milestones to build value and thinking long and hard
about the different funding philosophies in choosing the type of
company and investor partners.
Among other things, she discussed establishing proof of
concept, developing a strong IP portfolio, setting defined goals
and steps in the path to commercialization, and determining the
type of business entity that is most suitable (lifestyle model,
small business, Silicon-Valley style start-up, buyable startup, or
social startup). She also outlined the pros and cons of the
different avenues of funding available to start-ups, such as angel
funding, friends-and-family, foundations, corporate alliance funding, and venture capital funding.
For those who missed the
February program, we hope you are able to join SoCalBio W3’s Mixer on
May 10, 2012 in Irvine, California. The keynote speakers will
be France Dixon Helfer, President & CEO, Epic Medical Inc. and
Sharon Stevenson, DVM, PHD, Managing Director, Okapi Venture
Capital.
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