UB team travels to D.C. for prestigious startups demo day

Six UB staff and faculty members traveled to Washington, D.C., last week to represent the institution at the first University Startups Demo Day, a celebration of the best such companies in the nation.

The Sept. 20 event — held on Capitol Hill — opened with an opportunity for university-linked startups to present their businesses to Global 1000/Fortune 500 companies, venture capitalists (VCs) and angel investors. Later in the day, the firms and their university partners met with the staff of U.S. senators and congressional representatives.

“It was a fantastic event. It was sort of a one-stop shop, where the startups are presenting to a broad variety of potential collaborators. I made great connections that I plan to follow up on,” says attendee Brian McIlroy, executive director of UB’s Buffalo Institute for Genomics and Data Analytics (BIG).

Just 36 companies from across the country were selected to present at the demo day. This exclusive group included two UB partners:

• ZOETIC Pharmaceuticals. Founded by CEO John J. Seman and Chief Scientific Officer Sven A. Beushausen, ZOETIC licenses antigen-specific immune tolerance induction technology from UB that significantly reduces unwanted immune responses. The technology — pioneered by Sathy V. Balu-lyer, professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences — has the potential to reverse debilitating effects of autoimmune diseases, improve the effectiveness of biologic drugs and enhance the success rate of gene therapy.
  
• Garwood Medical Devices. Founded by President and CEO Wayne Bacon and Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Gregg Gellman, Garwood is part of the START-UP NY economic development program at UB. The company recently raised $3.6 million in Series A funding, and also received a $1.48 million grant from BIG at UB to accelerate development and commercialization of its programmable, monitored medical devices. One device focuses on treatment of chronic wounds, while another — based on intellectual property licensed from UB — focuses on eradication of biofilms and controlling implant infections.
  
  This latter technology was developed by a team that included Mark Ehrensberger, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and faculty members Anthony A. Campagnari and Nicole R. Luke-Marshall in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

UB’s contingent at the event included:

• Brian McIlroy, executive director of BIG at UB.
• Jeff Dunbar, director of UB’s technology transfer office.
• Amy Schmit, director of management and strategic implementation at UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences and UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics.
• John J. Seman and Sven A. Beushausen of ZOETIC Pharmaceuticals.
• Wayne Bacon and Gregg Gellman of Garwood, along with Garwood advisor Matthew J. Phillips, clinical assistant professor of clinical orthopaedics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a physician with UBMD Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and chief of orthopaedics at Kaleida Health. Also present were Mark Ehrensberger and Edward Furlani, professor of biological and chemical engineering and of electrical engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who are working with the company on research and development supported by BIG.

The demo day was hosted by the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2), an association of university startup officers.

The event provides top companies and investors with the opportunity to discover, review and partner with university startups. It also raises awareness in Congress of the pivotal role that universities play in the formation of high-potential startups and the creation of high-value jobs across the country.

The morning presentations were held at the Rayburn House Office Building, while afternoon events took place at the Russell Senate Office Building. The UB team met with staff from the offices of Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Brian Higgins.

“As a university, we gained a lot of visibility,” McIlroy says. “It gave us the opportunity to get in front of potential partners, including funding agencies like the Department of Defense and National Science Foundation, and VCs. I thought it was great.”