The BioFoundry

The BioFoundry program exists to help promising early-stage ventures in biotechnology and innovative cell and gene therapies find a way forward.

This federally funded startup support program is designed to support researchers commercializing technology in the bio-pharmaceutical industry. Over the course of four multi-week focused sprints, the program covers:

• IP Strategy, licensing, and partnerships
• Hiring, managing, and team-building
• Fundraising, financing, and budgeting
• Pitching, communications, and presentations

Our program is specifically designed to support cell and gene therapeutics companies as they are getting ready to fundraise for a Series A. All of our programming is interactive, focusing on workshops, 1-on-1s, and roundtables.

Viable startups and scale-ups are matched with customized resources including capital, vetted talent, scale-up assets and mentoring. As those ventures mature, we help them secure the resources they need to grow and facilitate partnerships that lead to successful exits.

We operate with support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) Program and the program is managed by the Entrepreneurship Division at NJII. 

The initial BioFoundry cohort includes five promising, innovative, and interesting biopharmaceutical startups. They completed their 15 week program in January, 2021 and will be featured at the BioFoundry Startup Incubator Showcase on February 25th, 2021 from 1-3pm EST. 

• Navega Therapeutics has a radically different approach to treating chronic pain and tackling the opioid epidemic through a gene therapy platform that is highly specific and long-lasting.
• TeraImmune develops innovative immune-cell therapies that program regulatory T cells to recognize and suppress unwanted immune reactions.
• LEAH Labs uses modern gene-editing technologies to make living cell therapies, like CAR-T cell therapy, accessible and affordable to the veterinary market – starting with B cell lymphoma treatment.
• Ciscovery Bio specializes in the discovery and commercialization of non-coding biomarkers for drug discovery and precision medicine by identifying a large number of gene regulatory elements.
• Nvigorea AB commercializes the world's first nanocellulose-based filter paper that is capable of sifting away all types of viruses from protein solutions, cell culture media, or water as easily as brewing coffee.

The following partners help make the BioFoundry program possible.

• Mentoring
• Team building
• Talent scouting
• Access to establish entrepreneurship ecosystem
• Cell and Gene Therapy Process Development & cGMP Facility
• Access to VentureLink co-working and lab bench space
• Technical assistance in process development scale-up
• Pitch technologies to investors, big pharma & potential partners
• Access to NJIT’s Material Characterization Laboratory with 25 state of the art instruments

• Get early access to investment-ready startups and scale-ups
• We complete due diligence on all members prior to acceptance providing you access to high-potential startups
• Our team identifies innovative start-ups outside of the biotech hotspots
• We work with each company to communicate their story, raise initial funds, and create a winning team