TL;DR — Clara Biotech needs views and likes on a company explainer video in order to advance in a highly competitive pitch event. Click here to watch the video or keep reading.
Online audience support could help propel a local biotech startup into the finals of an Oct. 15 pitch competition where the winner will leave with $200,000 in non-dilutive cash prizes.
Clara Biotech is among 10 companies selected to participate in BioTools Innovator’s inaugural three-month virtual mentorship-focused accelerator program. Participants are developing solutions for cell research, genomics, data and informatics, and synthetic biology and hail from across the U.S. and Europe.
Click here to learn more about Clara Biotech.
“We’re excited to be recognized for our work by the Biotools Innovator program and we look forward to the opportunity to pitch later in October,” said Jim West, co-founder and CEO of Clara Biotech, which is building a scalable platform to help harness the power of exosomes to diagnose and cure diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer. “This is all part of helping to put a spotlight on exosomes and educate people about their possibilities and helping us to connect with the researchers that are doing this amazing work.”
The BioTools Innovator final pitch competition is set for mid-month in Carlsbad, California. More than 160 companies applied for the BioTools program, but only four startups from the 2021 BioTools cohort will advance to compete in the finals.
“Part of the final selection process is to develop a one-minute video that showcases our people, company and technology,” West explained, noting each company gets points for views, as well as extra points for likes, on the videos created for the competition. “We have cash awards on the line and prestige for views and likes of our video with an opportunity to win up to $200K cash.”
Online “voting” to determine the final four companies included in the pitch event ends Oct. 13.
Watch Clara Biotech’s competition video below, then keep reading.
Click here to share Clara Biotech’s video.
The overall winning company at the Oct. 15 pitch competition will be determined by a live audience vote.
“We built this accelerator to support innovators in bringing their promising ideas to market,” said Kathryn Zavala, managing director of BioTools Innovator, calling the cohort an impressive group of cutting-edge life science startups poised to advance research with exciting new innovations. “Together with our partners, we are proud to provide valuable education and expert mentorship to these entrepreneurs working to make a real impact on human health.”
Clara Biotech is a Lawrence-based biotech company headed for launch with an exosome isolation platform that solves a huge roadblock around manufacturing that helps the entire biopharma industry make future breakthrough drugs that may not otherwise get approved, according to the company.
Wrapping a seed round slated for $1.5 million this fall, Clara Biotech recently received notice of allowance for a key patent, and recruited two senior executives to help with manufacturing and scale up. The company this week also hired two new team members and is currently hiring for a senior exosome scientist, West said.
“Our company is going to be developing manufacturing and quality support for diagnostic applications, therapeutic manufacturing and regenerative medicine,” he detailed in the company’s competition video. “It’s going to enable the next generation of technologies.”