Maren Schinz, PhD, has lived with T1D since 2008 and has two passions: science and design. After graduating with honors, the post-doctoral biochemist had all the prerequisites for a promising science career. She started on this path but after some frustrating situations with her standard black nylon diabetes supplies case, she wanted to design bags that provided discretion and gave people the freedom to decide for themselves when to talk about their diabetes. “We cannot change your diabetes, but we can change your life with diabetes,” is the goal of the company mysugarcase, which has been awarded several top startup prizes since its launch in 2016.
Ms. Agarawal is passionate about empowering people to live life to the fullest by making integrative medicine accessible to people where they are. She started her career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley, working for companies including IBM, Motorola/Google. She then developed the world’s first mobile video technology at a startup which was later acquired by Skype. This invention continues to change the world even today.
She then changed her career into integrative medicine by studying, practicing, and conducting research in both eastern and western medicine. She spent the next decade as a researcher, oncology nurse, and integrative medicine practitioner at institutions including the Mayo Clinic, Stanford Cancer Center, and UCSF Cancer Center. Her groundbreaking research work on the development of algorithms for clinical impact of integrative medicine was recognized by UCSF and the NSF. She received support from them to start Helpsy, the world’s first Artificial intelligence nurse for wholistic symptom management and navigation (SAN).
Ms. Agarawal is passionate about empowering people in health care to understand and be at the forefront of the technology revolution.
I’m currently an undergraduate student in Computer Science at MIT. I have a long-term interest in healthcare, and particularly in cancer, due to many health issues my family had to endure. As a result, I have pursued computational research of cancer immunotherapy at MIT, developed a microfluidics device for accelerating cancer drug development at the National University of Singapore and started my company ConquerX. ConquerX is developing a multi-cancer diagnostic platform based on proprietary nanomaterials and machine learning. Our Metachip platform uses electrochemistry to measure the concentration of cancer-related biomarkers in blood or biopsy samples. We are currently testing our prototype on 3 different types of cancer. Moreover, our technology is portable to other diseases as well, which we demonstrate through our collaboration with a research laboratory in Brazil on the development of a novel test for diagnostics of syphilis. We are alumni of MassChallenge Boston and MassChallenge HealthTech, currently raising our seed round and looking to expand our team.
Zach Rome is science educator turned “inventrepreneur”. In 2013, Zach co-founded Patagonia Pharmaceuticals to develop treatments for unmet needs in medical dermatology. The Company’s lead product is being developed for a rare genetic disorder called Congenital Ichthyosis and is currently in Phase 2 studies.
Previously, Zach was a middle school science teacher and the Founder and Executive Director of The Schooba Academy, a nonprofit after-school program teaching at-risk students science through scuba diving. Zach has degrees in Marine Science and Biology from the University of Miami and an MST in Adolescent Science Biology from Pace University. Zach is a NYC Teaching Fellow, the Grand Prize Winner of the 2041 International Teachers’ Contest (sponsored by Random House), a PADI OWSI Instructor, a First Aid/CPR Instructor, and a former volunteer Emergency Medical Technician. Zach has worked and/or traveled in over 50 countries and all 7 continents.
Ira Spector, PhD is the CEO and Co-Founder of SFA Therapeutics. Ira founded SFA in 2016 after seeing data from a new approach to treating immuno-inflammatory diseases discovered at Temple University in Philadelphia. Ira is a passionate drug developer who has worked on 34 approved drugs, including ToricelTM for kidney cancer (RCC) and MylotargTM for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). SFA is pioneering new treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a hepatitis B-induced liver cancer that causes 880,000 deaths per year; a second drug to prevent relapse/recurrence in leukemia and lymphoma; and a third drug to reduce the incidence of cytokine storm, an often-fatal side effect of CAR-T therapy in treating cancer. Ira has co-founded three previous startups. His father-in-law and brother-in-law died from cancer, his parents had cancer, and both Ira and his wife have had tumors removed. Ira’s passion is personal: to improve the outcomes for patients with cancer.
Mihir Shah is a visionary entrepreneur addressing global health disparities by translating scientific discoveries into affordable and scalable med-tech solutions that improve outcomes. For over 15 years, he’s led the commercialization of several medical innovations impacting many lives. He is the Founder and President of UE Lifesciences, a fast-growing multi-national startup making the hope of cancer early detection a reality with the award-winning innovations, iBreastExam and cervAIcal, benefitting over 400,000 women in 10 countries.
A two-time TED speaker, Mihir’s work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, and other notable publications. As an adjunct faculty member, Mihir teaches Entrepreneurship in Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University.
Florence Séjourné is an entrepreneur with a passion for life sciences, eager to bring groundbreaking innovation to patients. She is the CEO of Da Volterra, a Paris-based biotech company that develops novel Microbiota Protective Therapies inspired by the vision of a renowned microbiologist, Prof. Antoine Andremont. Its most advanced product, DAV132, is a novel and unique oral phase 2-stage product designed to fight the damaging effects of antibiotics on the intestinal microbiota. It is expected to have important benefits in patients with cancer, the gut microbiome being a major modulator of immunosurveillance of cancer.
Florence graduated from Mines Paritech and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and has 20 years of experience in successful entrepreneurial ventures. She co-founded GENFIT, a leading public biotech company innovating in metabolic and liver disease (NASH). She has demonstrated her capacity to set up and lead a highly professional organization from early research drug discovery to late-stage clinical development and market access, and has established numerous fruitful business development and fundraising deals. Many of Florence’s family members and friends have been diagnosed with cancer, and she is motivated to identify new ways to improve treatment and quality of life for those affected.
Pierluigi is co-founder and Chairman & CEO at Genenta Science, a clinical stage immune-gene therapy company, and a spinoff from Prof. Luigi Naldini and San Raffaele Milano, which has raised $20M in two rounds. Currently, the company has phase 1/2 trials ongoing in multiple myeloma and glioblastoma. Genenta has labs and an office in Milano and an office at Alexandria Center LaunchLabs, New York.
Pierluigi is a serial entrepreneur and investor in biotech, for example he invested in Ethical Oncology Science (EOS), a company acquired by Clovis Oncology (Nasdaq: CVLS) for $470M in 2013. He is a co-founder and Board Member at Altheia Science, an autoimmune diseases startup that raised $20M for its Series A round in 2018.
Regarding his personal experience, Pierluigi says, “I’m not a scientist, I’m an entrepreneur in biotech with a financial background. I really saw a cancer cell for the first time when my mom was diagnosed in 2007, a few months before my marriage. She is here with us today and she enjoys spending time her granddaughter, thanks to clinical research.”
He is a former VC, e.g. co-founder and CEO at Quantica SGR, Venture Consultant at Sofinnova Partners, co-founder and Investment Advisor at Axòn Capital, and co-founder and advisor at AurorA-TT. He is a board member of Italia Startup (Italian Association for startups) and Assobiotec (Italian Association of biotech companies). He is a member of Italian Angels for Biotech (business angel group) and Confindustria Life Sciences and Cluster Life Sciences – Lombardia.
David is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of SHEPHERD and the Executive Director of the SHEPHERD Foundation. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Charles River Research Models in Drug Discovery Award Winner, and Spotlight Health Scholar at the Aspen Institute. David previously founded an NGO that worked with refugee children, worked as an undercover investigator against the sexual enslavement of children in Southeast Asia, and was in the training pipeline for Special Operations in the U.S. Military until he was diagnosed with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma in 2015. David combined the fearlessness, determination, and desire to save the lives of others that had marked his previous endeavors to found SHEPHERD with one goal in mind — to save the life of every rare cancer patient. David holds a B.A. in Economics, Philosophy and French Literature from Transylvania University, a M.A.L.A. in Intellectual History from St. John’s College, a M.Div from Harvard University in Religion, Ethics & Politics, and is currently completing his Executive MBA through the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard Business School.
Jen Horonjeff, PhD is a patient advocate and founder & CEO of Savvy Cooperative. Savvy is a patient co-op that provides an online marketplace for savvy patients to share their insights with healthcare innovators in order to co-create better patient-centered solutions. Savvy grew out of a need that Jen saw as both a patient with multiple chronic illnesses and as an researcher and industry consultant. She noticed that professionals talk about patients–not with actual patients. Patient insights are invaluable, because many patients, like herself, have multiple conditions and co-morbidities they are trying to manage, and their priorities may be different than their care teams’. Jen got her PhD in Environmental Medicine at NYU, is a patient-centered outcomes researcher at Columbia University Medical Center, a Consumer Representative for the FDA, a speaker on the importance of patient engagement, and a longtime non-profit volunteer. In 2015, Jen and her husband rode a tandem bicycle from NYC to Florida to raise awareness and funds for one of the patient charities she supports.