MassNextGen Awardees

Elizabeth O’Day, CEO

Olaris Therapeutics

Olaris is a precision diagnostics company that is on a mission to revolutionize how diseases are diagnosed and treated. By leveraging their CEREBRO platform (Comprehensive Early Responsive Evaluation of Biomarkers Related to Outcomes), which combines metabolomics and machine learning, they are able to harness the power of the body’s own communication system to discover and develop their pipeline of myOLARIS precision diagnostics.

Vera Hoffman, CEO

Reveal Pharmaceuticals

Hoffman and her company are working to develop a manganese based contrast agent that improves upon the safety of gadoliniumbased agents without compromising efficacy. Reveal Pharmaceuticals has been able to make additional hires through the money they received as part of MassNextGen. Beyond this funding, the company was awarded a supplemental NIH grant. The field itself has also progressed during MassNextGen and multiple papers and articles supporting the basis for Reveal’s technology, that Gadolinium based imaging agents are retained in the cerebrospinal fluid and the brain.

Laura Indolfi, President and CEO

PanTher Therapeutics

PanTher Therapeutics is a clinical-stage oncology company revolutionizing cancer care by harnessing sustained treatments engineered for localized applications. We are Attacking Cancer at The Source™ by providing therapeutics on target. PanTher mission is to redefine cancer treatment with therapeutics designed to act precisely at the tumor site for enhanced clinical outcomes and minimal side effects. We empower oncologists to better treat cancer patients by unlocking a drug’s full potential through direct, sustained treatment at the tumor site. Our innovative Sagittari™ platform enables to engineer optimized therapeutic solutions to address the specific challenges dictated by tumor type, location, and ideal therapeutic regimen. PanTher lead candidate, PTM-101, is a minimally invasive, implantable treatment for pancreatic cancer currently being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial as first line therapy for localized non-metastatic pancreatic cancers.

Yue Shao, President

Buy Time Medical

Developing a method of therapeutic hypothermia or medical protective cooling for hospital cardiac arrest and minimally invasive surgeries to prevent warm ischemia and surgical trauma.

Akshaya Shanmugam, CEO

Lumme Labs

Treatment of addictions to smoking, alcohol, and diet through behavioral monitoring via wearable device and app platform.

Azadeh Khanicheh, President and Founder

Envision Endoscopy

Khanicheh brings 15 years of experience in the medical device innovation and research space. After receiving her PhD in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering from Northeastern she worked throughout Massachusetts, including 15 issued and pending patents. EnVision Endoscopy is working on a suturing adjunct that can be used with any endoscope. By decreasing the number of steps and procedure time, the cost is decreased and this allows for access to a greater number of gastroenterologists and surgeons.

Minmin Yen, CEO and Co-Founder

PhagePro

Yen is a recent PhD graduate from Tufts University. During her tenure there, she worked on developing a bacteriophage product to combat household transmission of cholera. PhagePro was founded to not only continue this work but also develop phage products for emerging markets. Their initial target is cholera and by offering an oral product that offers immediate protection, families of patients infected with cholera will be able to take care of their loved ones without fear while also curbing outbreaks in the community.

Carmela Mascio, President and CSO

LivOnyx

Developer of a rapid hand disinfection system to reduce healthcare associated infections.

Amy Ripka, CEO and Founder

Lucy Therapeutics

Ripka brings 23 years of drug discovery experience and expertise to her role at Lucy Therapeutics. She has over 30 issued chemical patents and has worked in drug discovery from screening through IND. Ripka has also led international research conferences and served as a scientific advisor to multiple biotechs. She is applying this experience to LucyTx’s goal of generating a new mitochondrial platform for the discovery of neurological therapies, first focusing on Rett Syndrome and Parkinson’s Disease. LucyTx targets mitochondrial nexus points, which can address both the genetic and environmental factors in these diseases.

Suzanne Mitchell, CEO and Founder

See Yourself Health

Mitchell is a physician researcher that designs and studies the impact of digital health for improved health service delivery for chronic and serious illness. She has 20 years of clinical and research experience on implementation science. Mitchell leverages her experience through See Yourself Health to develop a digital health platform to empower and prepare people to reverse the course of diabetes in their lives. The technology uses virtual reality and innovative programming to generate a comprehensive toolkit for chronic disease and population health management.

Camille Martin, CEO and Co-Founder

Seaspire

Pioneering a new category of multifunctional materials utilizing the bio-inspired, patent-pending, natural ingredient Xanthochrome® to combat negative health implications associated with environmental pollution.

Johnson & Johnson awardee

Joanna Stackina, CEO and Co-founder

Axonis

Advancing breakthrough drug discoveries to develop groundbreaking therapies for spinal cord injury and other currently incurable neurological disorders, making a real difference for patients, their families, and the global healthcare system

Virginia Burger, Co-Founder and CEO

New Equilibrium Biosciences

https://newequilibriumbio.com/

Virginia is passionate about combining computational and experimental approaches to create new and better medicines. Virginia completed a Ph.D. through a joint Carnegie Mellon-University of Pittsburgh program in Computational Biology, where she developed network models for interpreting biological processes and patented a computer vision algorithm that was used by a university spinout for cancer prognosis. As an NSF and Swiss NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT, she focused her research on a class of undrugged proteins, termed intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), and performed both biophysical and computational experiments to discover druggable conformations of IDPs. She also supervised a team that created publicly available tools for interpreting experimental data on IDPs. In addition to her research, Virginia served as the Community Building Chair for MIT’s Postdoctoral Association and participated in MIT’s Translational Fellows Program, where she began customer discovery for the company that is now New Equilibrium. Virginia then worked for two years at XtalPi, Inc., an algorithm-driven pharmaceutical technology startup. As a Senior Scientist and the Director of Scientific Collaborations, she was the lead scientific contact for establishing pharmaceutical partnerships during XtalPi’s period of rapid growth. In August 2019, Virginia started New Equilibrium with the goal of designing drugs that would target IDPs and cure disease.

Nele van Dessel, CEO and Co-Founder

Ernest Pharmaceuticals

The vision of Ernest Pharmaceuticals is to create a new bacterial toolbox for cancer therapies that will increase translation of cutting-edge discoveries in fundamental cancer research into clinical treatments. Ernest Pharmaceuticals’ focus will be on tumors with low survival rates, such as liver, pancreas, ovarian and metastatic breast cancer. For these patients, very few therapeutic possibilities exist that greatly improve overall survival time. Bacterial cancer therapies have the potential to change these high mortality rates and to make a significant impact in the lives of patients that have exhausted all treatment options.

Ida Pavlichenko, CEO, President, and Co-founder

PionEar

Developing a new generation of fluid-guiding, and biocontamination-resistant medical conduits (e.g. tubes and shunts) that can be customized to address the need for more efficacious drug delivery or drainage of biological fluids in different parts of the human body. PionEar’s first product is a bioinspired tympanostomy tube (also known as an ear tube) that allows antibiotic drops to penetrate the middle ear more efficiently than existing tubes for a more effective resolution of infection and reduces the risk of unnecessary revision surgeries and complications.

Natalie Artzi, Co-Founder and CEO

BioDevek

Aiming to transform the field of surgical and topical adhesive materials with a family of proprietary internal, external and reversible adhesive materials that reacts in a graded manner with each tissue as a function of type and state to provide adequate adhesion while maintaining biocompatibility

Liane Clamen, Founder and CEO

Adaptilens

Adaptilens is developing an accommodating intraocular lens that imitates the natural human lens and works with the muscles inside the eye to allow patients to see clearly over a range of distances without eyeglasses or contact lenses.

Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, CEO and Co-Founder

AOA Dx

AOA Dx is developing the next frontier in early-stage cancer detection through its pioneering work in glycolipids and proprietary biomarker technology. Our revolutionary tumor marker ganglioside platform, GlycoLocate™, is paving the way for life-saving early cancer detection. In a first of its kind, AOA Dx is developing AKRIVIS GD™, an early-stage liquid biopsy test for ovarian cancer.

Laura Kleiman, Founder and CEO

Reboot Rx

Reboot Rx is the nonprofit health tech startup dedicated to fast-tracking the development of affordable cancer treatments using repurposed generic drugs, AI technology, and innovative funding models.

Roya Khosravi-Far, Co-Founder and CEO

InnoTech Precision Medicine

InnoTech Precision Medicine is developing a pioneering biosensor platform technology for the next generation of point of care diagnostics. These biosensors can be developed for many types of disease biomarkers, including antigens and nucleic acids, allowing accurate, sensitive, and field-deployable diagnosis in one test that is currently possible from multiple tests. Our initial indication will be for the rapid and accurate screening and diagnosis of upper respiratory infections including COVID and Influenza. Our pipeline includes biosensors for Sepsis and Immune Oncology.

Lynne Becker, CEO and Founder

Power of Patients

Power of Patients (POP) is a patient-led technology innovator with a patent-pending AI app that is transforming traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The app is patient-powered, collecting TBI data at a granular level through a patient’s direct input, driving patient engagement to improve care and create unique therapeutic and research opportunities for providers, researchers, and the clinical trial industry.

Elizabeth Wood​, Founder & CEO ​

JURA Bio

JURA Bio is revolutionizing the field of cell therapies for T-cell mediated disease with its cutting-edge platform powered by machine learning and synthetic biology.

Alison Burklund, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Nanopath​

Nanopath is a molecular diagnostics company that aims to disrupt traditional testing methodologies. The company’s goal is to equitably improve the lives of patients, starting with women, by providing actionable molecular information within a single office visit.

CL Tian​, CEO

Phiex Technologies

Phiex Technologies enables medical device makers to sterilize critical devices in-line with self-sterilizing materials, providing a safe, cost/time-savings alternative to the cancer-causing status quo.

Andee Wallace, CEO and Co-Founder

Robigo

As the global population approaches 10B, food production will need to increase 50-60% to meet global food needs. Robigo seeks to improve food security and sustainability of our agricultural systems by providing more effective bio-based solutions to reduce the 20-40% of crops lost annually to pests and disease. Robigo is leveraging cutting edge biotechnology and data science to develop a new class of precision microbials to protect crops, fight disease, and improve overall yields while creating a more sustainable future for agriculture.

Maura Warner​, CEO and Co-Founder ​

Sidereal Therapeutics

Sidereal is an early-stage company developing therapeutics for Acute Kidney Injury, Bone Marrow Transplant & other critical care applications.

MissionBioCapital Awardee

Samantha Johnson, Founder and CEO

Tatum Robotics

Tatum Robotics is supporting DeafBlind individuals with their first independent communication tool prioritizing their primary language, tactile sign.

Ananya Zutshi, Co-Founder and CEO

Guardian Bio

Guardian Bio is developing a first-in-class therapy leveraging a newly defined type of dendritic cell designed to launch a personalized anti-tumor immune response in cancer patients.

Katerina Chatzi, Founder and CEO

Promakhos Therapeutics

Promakhos Therapeutics is developing curative therapies that restore the function of the immune system, allowing the body to control inflammation and heal.

Karen Cronholm, CEO and Co-Founder

Akeyna

Akeyna is a medical technology company dedicated to improving the lives of patients and medical professionals by increasing the safety of common procedures. Akeyna’s novel technology detects the presence of blood vessels in vivo.

Diana Mojahed, Founder and CEO

Pathflow, Inc.

Pathflow, Inc. is developing a high-resolution 3D tissue imager on-a-chip that will enable a more accurate, efficient, and less costly tissue diagnostic pathology process.