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​RNAissance Therapeutics was founded by a passionate group of life science professionals from across the globe with a particular interest in taking science from the bench to market. We decided to use our diverse skill set from various disciplines to compete in The Center for Advancing Innovation and NIH Nanotechnology Startup Challenge in Cancer after seeing the success of previous challenges. After careful consideration and long debates we decided to move forward with one of the most challenging yet most promising technologies, invention 2, which combines RNAi and nanotechnology. Cancer is brought about by genetic alterations that allow cells to grow uncontrollably; the use of siRNA enables us to correct these alterations resulting in the death of the cancerous cells. Currently available technologies only target one of these alterations at a time using chemical compounds or antibodies leading to the development of resistance to that therapy. However, our approach will allow us to target up to 6 of these alterations at any one time so that we can deliver more effective therapies to tumors than is currently achievable.

We will start by applying our technology to develop a treatment for Glioblastoma, a brain tumor that despite having several targetable genetic alterations has no cure. If successful, this technology has the potential to benefit the 26,000 people that get the disease each year. So far, we have received very positive feedback from leading medical experts in the field as well as from the patients themselves both of whom recognized the vast potential of the technology. Our mission is to build a strong development pipeline in order to help these patients, but in the long term we aim to expand that out to other cancers focusing in particular on those with limited treatment options.

Our participation in the CAI and NIH Nanotechnology Startup Challenge in Cancer has been quite an adventurous ride so far. It is no secret that building a startup requires a lot of time, dedication, and ambition. However, being able to observe one’s own progress as we develop our business from ideation to implementation is just as rewarding. We are very appreciative of the many people, and especially the members of the Center for Advancing Innovation, who guided us along the way and helped us to avoid common pitfalls. We particularly enjoy the plethora of webinars on all aspects of business development, which have turned the competition into a highly immersive experience. The opportunities to directly reach out to the speakers and discuss our individual concerns greatly accelerated our efforts. Likewise, having been able to engage with stakeholders such as clinicians, pharma representatives, and policy makers provided us with invaluable insights into desirable features of novel therapeutics. It is very encouraging to see the depth of interest we can spark with our business endeavor. 

Yet, building a startup also requires learning how to navigate rough waters. As with a lot of new technologies, people have a tendency to be skeptical – sometimes for good reasons, other times out of fear for uncertainty. We as a team had to learn how to tell apart constructive criticism from a general inertia to change. Moreover, we were facing the challenge to convince experts of the promise of our nascent technology with limited access to data, which put us in what one could describe as a chicken and egg situation. Within the competition, we have learned that developing a compelling business plan does not solely rely on preliminary data but also on a thorough risk analysis. By doing so, we were able to develop respective action plans that will help us to minimize the impact of unfavorable scenarios and therefore attract greater investor interest. -Anna Perdrix and Nina Kloss

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Nanosense

7/17/2016

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The Nanosense team was formed from a few self-advertising, entrepreneurs provided to us in a list by the Center for Advancing Innovation. Although we lacked proximity to each other, we each shared a common dedication to excel. This became very important when developing new ideas and maintaining team momentum to complete all deliverables. Simply put, motivated people don’t need to directly hold hands to traverse new paths together. That list created by CAI established a melting-pot background, startup experience and academic training that gave our team diverse strength and professional companionship which, in turn enhanced our ability re-envision Invention 4. 

We had big ideas about this sensor technology but initially lacked clarity on what specific cancer problems we could apply it to. There is no estimation for the time we spent in finding real targets to focus on. Meanwhile, the CAI webinars helped us to understand how to compare strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for each target. So far, we have made many journeys and pivots but finally transformed our golden technology into a gilded arrow with golden purpose: to create a new cancer diagnostic test that is needed by people infected with Human Papillomavirus. Team dedication was more important than proximity to find the real value in Invention 4.

Currently, HPV+ women have no companion diagnostics to the traditional Pap smear or cervical biopsy which can fail to detect HPV cancer at high rates. Further, HPV+ men have even fewer molecular diagnostic options that provide cancer-definitive answers. Our conceptual arrow can detect HPV cancer, monitor HPV cancer treatment efficacy, and save lives with profitable margins.

When it comes to molecular diagnostics in HPV, centralized testing hubs command the governance, standards, and rich resources that enable most testing in the US. This hub of plenty is now at $360 million and is growing annually at rates of 10% or better. Our extensive research uncovered many natural barriers that severely limit current hub technologies to detect HPV cancer biomarkers. We are excited to point out that Invention 4 can overcome these natural barriers and thus makes a fantastic companion diagnostic with specific advantages that are difficult to reproduce. We have no apologies for the identified competitors as we make HPV cancer diagnostics better than ever before.

Our new HPV focus made changes to our current business plan. When we apply for a license from the NIH, we intend to develop this technology for cancer diagnostics related to viral infections. We want to initially work with the inventor, Dr. Javed Kahn at NCI, to quickly prototype the technology for miniaturized optimization. Over the next months, we will reorganize our team and reinvent with new talent that will aid our success for the challenges ahead. Specifically, we must retool for several HPV preclinical studies to optimize sensitivity, microchip optimization, manufacturing, and  smartphone software development. Our primary goal is to initiate a milestone which is to incorporate as an LLC, this month. -Eric Hamlett, Nanosense
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NanoRED- NSCSquared Challenge Testimonial

7/17/2016

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The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) has been a key part of NanoRed’s early success. Science is about people; a concept that is at the core of NanoRed and one that is shared by CAI. Through our experience with CAI, we built a team that is committed to transforming cancer treatment options. CAI provided the mentoring and the framework necessary to help us identify an opportunity that could make a real difference in the clinic. The Nanotechnology Startup Challenge in Cancer (NSCSquared) truly is one-of-a-kind. It represents an enormous investment in terms of time and effort by the competition organizers to teach us and to hone our business skills, for which we are incredibly grateful. Because of CAI, we developed a deeper and broader network of mentors to help us drive our program forward. Our enthusiasm was mirrored by the mentors that NSCSquared helped us to connect with; the mentors and the network that NSCSquared helped us to build and to put in place have been invaluable. On a personal level, our participation in the Nanotechnology Startup Challenge has been more than rewarding- it was an opportunity for many of us, as scientists, to better appreciate how business and science interact to deliver solutions. In addition to better appreciating the logistics of building a startup, from financial modeling to the work that it takes to build a solid, multi-disciplinary team, the Challenge instilled in us the belief that entrepreneurship isn’t something that is reserved for business students and MBAs; now, more than ever, entrepreneurial approaches to science are needed to build a better future.
 
NSCSquared pushed our organizational potential with tight timetables, and assignments that challenged us to think hard about what our business model could and should be. Though the work was challenging, it was rewarding and helped to equip us and make us ready to face the next challenge: launching a startup with the team that we have in place and take us to the finish line which would be clinical trials of a new technology that we believe will make a difference in the lives of cancer patients.
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NanoRed-About our Company

7/17/2016

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​Innovation is the lifeblood of 21st century biotechnology. It is more than just invention; it is the rational and creative application of technology to solve problems. Nowhere is innovation more needed than in the field of medicine. Advances in immunology have powered new therapies that could change the way that we treat cancers and other chronic diseases—with implications for millions of lives.  One of the critical problems, especially in the field of immunotherapy, is the huge number of therapies that are potentially effective, but can never be used on patients because they are too toxic.  The vast armamentarium of potential therapies that are left sitting on the shelf should result in moral outrage for the cancer research community. The central challenge is lack of a delivery platform capable of delivering immunostimulation to the tumor microenvironment without systemic distribution. Many immunotherapies stimulate uncontrolled broad immune reactions that can be life-threatening. If these therapies could be combined with a delivery vehicle capable of limiting them to the local tumor site, the might of the human immune system could be focused to eliminate malignant disease, with dramatically reduced systemic side effects. What is needed now is true innovation- the development of new platforms that are capable of realizing the dividends of decades of immunologic research to finally put these therapies into the hands of physicians and patients.
 
The genesis of NanoRed, LLC is tied directly to answering the central challenge of drug and immunotherapy delivery in cancer. We believe that no physician and no patient should ever have to choose between doing nothing or choosing a therapy that could have lifelong toxicities. We believe that no patient should be denied the potentially life-saving benefits of the vast armamentarium of novel cancer therapeutics for lack of a means to safely deliver them. These two guiding principles represent the core of NanoRed. Our bedrock is patients and their families, grounded in the application of excellent science.
 
We believe in innovation, which means using new and creative ways to make a difference in the lives of patients. The Nanotechnology Startup Challenge in Cancer shares our vision. Through the training and resources received here, NanoRed is ready to begin the journey of deploying a novel delivery platform for cancer drugs. The defined preclinical proof-of-concept for this precision delivery system in animals has laid the groundwork for NanoRed to move this technology to the clinic quickly and aggressively. Our engineered liposomes release their contents specifically within tumors after stimulation with the right infrared wavelength. Infrared gives us the advantage of deeper tissue penetration, enabling us to target sarcomas and soft tissue cancers that other delivery platforms cannot reach. Building on the successes of this technology to date, NanoRed has assembled a dedicated team and built collaborations and relationships with key stakeholders to enable rapid testing of this platform as a means to deliver immunotherapeutics directly to sarcomas and soft tissue cancers. This proof-of-concept in human clinical trials will significantly de-risk the technology and pave the way for our drug delivery platform to become the next generation standard of care, providing new hope to patients.
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Accelerated Nanotech

7/17/2016

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Precision Nanotech: Moving Forward

7/17/2016

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 Our journey in the Center for Advancing Innovations’ Nano Startup Challenge in Cancer has been both engaging and challenging – each member playing a crucial role and essential in creating a comprehensive business structure.  As students and pharma professionals, our team has a strong foundation in many different areas of medicine and science.  Our entrepreneurial experience is definitely limited, but through research and exposure to different business models, long discussions, and guidance from our mentors, we feel at this point, we have a solid, promising business plan.

We’re excited to move to the next phase of the competition!  Our invention – infrared-activated liposomes – has a thrilling amount of potential, and we really can’t wait to start raising capital.  As “Precision Nanotech”, we’d utilize the vast applicability of the technology as a licensed platform to improve chemotherapies for a variety of cancers.  By licensing the technology, we’ll be able to quickly generate a revenue stream and avoid leveraging seed money in long, risky clinical trials.

Each of us is so happy to have the opportunity to participate in this challenge: to take a potentially groundbreaking technology invented by the NIH and make it available to millions of patients in need, to work with industry leaders, and to conceptualize and build a company from the ground up.  The Center for Advancing Innovation has done an exceptional job at providing quality education and assistance for the teams, and we’ve learned so much already.  We’re anticipating even greater experiences as we move forward into making this project a reality. -David Winters
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George Washington University - Introduction

7/15/2016

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It is a real pleasure to work with talents from a variety of disciplines in this nano technology startup challenge. The gap between a lab and commercialization for any scientific invention is notoriously difficult to bridge. We are grateful for CAI's well-designed virtual incubator and patient communication (especially Rosemarie and Jonathan) to guide us along the steep learning curve. Our team is dedicated to deliver affordable and customized in-house diagnostic solutions to the aging population. Working and studying from different fields, we would never have the chance to integrate our individual expertise into one team without the wonderful opportunity CAI had provided. I would encourage any aspiring student entrepreneurs to participate in these challenges and learn by doing. - Chin Chin Zhang
George Washington University Written on July 15, 2016

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