More than 400 university startups are created nationally each year based on federally funded research and development. Such companies are instrumental in bridging the gap between academic innovation and the translation of new discoveries into products that can treat disease and improve health, and Harvard is making its presence known in this vital arena.
The Harvard Office of Technology Development(OTD) welcomed more than 400 individuals to a June 19 networking event that recognized 30 startup companies founded on Harvard discoveries. The guests, primarily attendees of the 2012 BIO International Convention, represented approximately 180 different companies, including many startups founded by reserachers and faculty at Harvard .
“In the last few years, OTD has pursued an ambitious agenda to transform Harvard’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and push our new inventions and discoveries into the marketplace for the benefit of society,” said Michal Preminger, executive director of OTD’s Harvard Medical School office.
One notable strategy OTD uses to foster the creation of startups is the Technology Development Biomedical Accelerator Fund, intended to help nascent technologies make the transition to commercialization. “We want to help populate Harvard’s entrepreneurial pipeline with new ventures,” she said.
“We were delighted to present these Harvard startups this afternoon, representing such an interesting variety of cutting-edge technologies, targeting multiple important unmet medical and public health needs,” said Preminger.
Recent Harvard startups include:
Genocea Biosciences:vaccines, including herpes, pneumonia, chlamydia and malaria (Darren Higgins, HMS professor of microbiology and immunobiology)
Proteostasis:novel small-molecule therapeutics designed to control the body’s protein stability (Dan Finley, HMS professor of cell biology, Randy King, Harry C. McKenzie Associate Professor of Cell Biology at HMS andFred Goldberg, HMS professor of cell biology)
Somahlution:organ transplantation solution (Hemant Thatte, HMS assistant professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the VA Boston Healthcare System)
Insero Health:epilepsy and pain therapy (Steven Schachter, HMS professor of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center)
Sirtris (now a GlaxoSmithKline company):small-molecule drugs that target enzymes associated with diseases of aging (David Sinclair, HMS professor of genetics)
