
Ernest Pharmaceuticals and Organicin Scientific have won the top two prizes at Lever’s 2024 Western Massachusetts Health Tech Challenge. The two startups were selected from among four finalists by a panel of expert judges. The event was held at MassChallenge, a global venture accelerator, located in Boston.
Biotech startup Ernest Pharmaceuticals of Hadley received $50,000 in innovation grant funding. The company seeks to create a novel bacterial platform to revolutionize cancer treatment success through innovations in intracellular macromolecule delivery, technology that was developed by company CEO and co-founder Nele Van Dessel during her postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Neil Forbes, chemical engineering. Their focus is on tumors with low survival rates; for these patients, very few therapeutic possibilities exist that greatly improve overall survival time, but bacterial cancer therapies have the potential to change these high mortality rates.
"Participating in the Western Mass Health Technology Challenge enabled us to validate our business model and resulted in many new connections that can push Ernest Pharmaceuticals forward,” Van Dessel said. “With the help of this prize, we can perform the necessary safety studies to get our therapies into clinical trials. The Challenge brought us one step closer to our final goal, developing cancer treatments for advanced solid tumors. We are grateful to Lever for this opportunity and their guidance during this competition.”
Amherst-based biotechnology research company Organicin Scientific Inc. received $25,000 for its work to discover and develop bacteriocins – used to fight harmful bacteria – to prevent disease and improve health. In the face of antimicrobial resistance, there is an urgent need for antibiotic alternatives that can mitigate disease challenges, in both agriculture and human health. Griffin O'Driscoll (biochemistry and molecular biology, BS '19) is co-founder and was the company's representative for the event. Margaret Riley, professor of biology, is the co-founder and chief scientific officer.
The Lever Western Massachusetts Health Technology Challenge accelerates early-stage companies operating in Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden or Hampshire Counties and is funded in part by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MSLC), an economic development investment agency dedicated to supporting the growth and development of the life sciences throughout the state. North Adams-based Lever and MLSC have partnered since 2016, with the Challenge representing the seventh in a collaborative series of acceleration programs.