Life Sciences Accelerator Program

The application period of this round has now closed.

The Accelerator Loan Program reflects the Center’s ongoing commitment to supporting early-stage life sciences companies that will grow employment opportunities and stimulate innovation across the Commonwealth. The primary objective of the Accelerator Loan Program is to provide working capital to early stage life sciences companies with a high potential for technology commercialization, rapid growth, and private equity financing.

Accelerator Program loans are capped at $1 million per company. Generally, target applicants are early-stage life sciences companies. As defined in the Life Sciences Statute, life sciences means “advanced and applied sciences that expand the understanding of human physiology and have the potential to lead to medical advances or therapeutic applications including, but not limited to, agricultural biotechnology, biogenerics, bioinformatics, biomedical engineering, biopharmaceuticals, biotechnology, chemical synthesis, chemistry technology, diagnostics, genomics, image analysis, marine biology, marine technology, medical devices, nanotechnology, natural product pharmaceuticals, proteomics, regenerative medicine, RNA interference, stem cell research and veterinary science.” The Accelerator Loan Program is designed to help sustain these companies through a critical stage of development and financing.

To date, the Accelerator program has awarded $15.1 million in loans to 24 companies. Six of these companies, Good Start Genetics, InVivo Therapeutics, 4s3 Bioscience, MoMelan, Pluromed, and most recently Avaxia Biologics have paid back their Accelerator loans early with interest after generating more than $105 million in equity or acquisition proceeds.

Please read below for an overview and solicitation of the second round of the program for FY 13. Criteria for future rounds is subject to change.

Please read the following criteria carefully as they have been modified slightly for this round.

For therapeutics companies, (defined as companies whose business goal is to develop a target compound that will be commercialized; may also be called “drug discovery” or “biotechnology”) the applicants should not have raised more than $15 million in total equity financing. For non-therapeutics companies, the applicants are companies that have raised no more than $7.5 million in total equity financing.

If you meet any of the following criteria, you are not eligible to apply to this program:

1. You received an award under the Center’s Accelerator Loan Program.
2. You received an award under the Center’s Small Business Matching Grant Program.
3. You have raised less than $300,000 in at-risk capital.
4. You do not have one W2 full-time employee (for purposes of this program, employees are considered to be full-time if they work over 35 hrs per week) in a leadership role (i.e. CEO, CFO, COO, CSO) that submits payroll tax to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

5. If you meet any of the following criteria, and you are a therapeutics company, you are not eligible to apply to the Life Sciences Accelerator Loan Program:

You have raised $15 million or more in total equity financing.

NOTE: If you reach the $15 million threshold prior to the closing and funding of the loan, you will become ineligible for an award under the program.

You are majority owned (greater than 50%) by a parent company that is an operating or holding company and

Have raised $15 million or more in total equity financing, or
Have received $15 million or more in debt/ financing from your parent, or
Have raised/received $15 million or more as a combination of the two previous bullet points.

You are majority owned (greater than 50%) by a parent that is an investment company, investment partnership, or investment fund and have received $15 million or more in financing from your parent.
You are not able to issue your own equity (stock or units of ownership).
A majority (greater than 50%) of your board members also serves on the board of your parent company or is employed by the parent company.
You are ineligible if any of your management team is employed by your parent company.

6. If you meet any of the following criteria, and you are a non-therapeutics company, you are not eligible to apply to the Life Sciences Accelerator Loan Program:

You have raised $7.5 million or more in total equity financing.

NOTE: If you reach the $7.5 million threshold prior to the closing and funding of the loan, you will become ineligible for an award under the program.

You are majority owned (greater than 50%) by a parent company that is an operating or holding company and

Have raised $7.5 million or more in total equity financing, or
Have received $7.5 million or more in debt/ financing from your parent, or
Have raised/received $7.5 million or more as a combination of the two previous bullet points.

You are majority owned (greater than 50%) by a parent that is an investment company, investment partnership, or investment fund and have received $7.5 million or more in financing from your parent.
You are not able to issue your own equity (stock or units of ownership).
A majority (greater than 50%) of your board members also serves on the board of your parent company or is employed by the parent company.
You are ineligible if any of your management team is employed by your parent company

Awards are expected to be announced at the end of May 2013.

The application period of this round has now passed.

For more information please review the links below.

Any questions about this program may be sent to accelerator@masslifesciences.com.