RFU and the SmartHealth Activator Host Inaugural Biotech Business Plan Competition: Three Women Executives Win Top Awards

Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, in collaboration with the SmartHealth Activator, a Midwest healthcare ventures  accelerator, held the inaugural Chicagoland Biotech Startup Business Plan Competition on July 21. This startup training and competition — which was staged virtually — featured 15 Chicago teams/ventures in categories that included therapeutics, medical devices and diagnostics, digital health care and healthcare services. 

The Biotech Business Plan Competition consisted of a four-month training program for  Chicagoland startups that paired industry experts as mentors to each new venture and  provided coaching on key startup business skills such as elevator pitch, business-plan  creation and development, and final longer pitch with audio-visual materials. The event  culminated in a competition on July 21 in front of a group of industry and venture capital judges, with the top three companies competing for cash prizes. The Lake County  chapter of SCORE — a national nonprofit network of volunteer mentors — also provided assistance in the development, review and critique of the business plan component of the program. 

“This program originally enrolled early-stage companies back in March, all with new  biomedical innovations that will hopefully benefit patients and healthcare organizations. The goal was to build on our regional startup training activities at our Helix 51 Incubator and the new Innovation and Research Park,” said RFU’s Ronald Kaplan, PhD,  executive vice president for research. “It also filled an important gap by assisting these  early-stage companies with critical industry mentorship and exposure in our larger Chicagoland bioscience community.”

Each team competed for cash and prizes, with $10,000 to the first place winner, $5,000  to the second place winner and $3,000 to the third place winner. A special award of $1,000 went to the best elevator pitch. The winning companies were: 

• First Place: Prenatal Hope led by CEO Tammy Dorsey, a biomedical engineer, which provides innovative prenatal monitoring devices.  
• Second Place: Targacell led by CEO/CSO Catherine Phillips, PhD, which is developing a non-invasive stem cell delivery system to repair damaged hearts. Targacell also won the elevator pitch competition. 
• Third Place: Enzyme-by-Design led by Co-Founder and COO Amanda Schalk, PhD, which is developing novel cancer therapy based on engineered enzymes. 

“We were thrilled with the high quality of the companies that competed, and the judges,  consisting of bioscience industry veterans, were impressed with the preparation, quality and novelty of these companies. We look forward to seeing their further progression and development,” said Tom Denison, founder and CEO of SmartHealth Activator. 

In addition to the cash awards, the winning companies all received additional prizes  consisting of membership services in RFU’s Helix 51 Incubator, which offers more than 5,500 square feet of lab, office and conference room space for startups, early-stage companies and international companies.