Getting a New Venture off the ground can prove a daunting task even for the most experienced entrepreneurs. To help these fledgling companies get up on their feet, the Office of Technology Development awards an outstanding company based on research from an entrepreneurial faculty member of Boston University with the Launch award. The award consists of a grant of up to $200,000 aimed at helping faculty commercialize technologies they have researched and developed at the university. Furthermore, OTD’s New Ventures group works closely with each Launch Award recipient, providing the tools and resources that can best assist the growth and development of the business in its earliest stages. By investing in its own faculty, BU can better facilitate the commercialization and dissemination of internally developed technologies.

OTD gave this year’s Launch Award to INTICA Biomedical. Their product is a cancer therapeutic; specifically, a companion diagnostic for breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma. These lethal diseases have extremely high mortality rates: the five year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is below three percent, and the survival outlook for a patient diagnosed with glioblastoma lies between 6-12 months. INTICA Biomedical’s companion diagnostic seeks to identify patients which are most likely to respond to INTICA’s novel therapeutics. “By identifying patients which are most likely going to respond to therapy, we have the potential to significantly impact patient outcomes,” says Christine Bunt, CEO of INTICA Biomedical. ” Intica’s novel treatments & companion diagnostic breaks new ground in the cancer market. The therapeutics selectively target cancer stem cells, cancer cells and tumor blood vessels.

Read more about the Launch Award here.