Innovation

MassNextGen:
5 Years of Shifting the Paradigm

Early-stage companies are the foundational piece to the Commonwealth’s global leadership in the life sciences. Yet, underrepresentation and bias toward women at all levels in the life sciences has real consequences not only for individual careers but for new innovative therapeutics for patients.

In 2018, the MLSC launched the Massachusetts Next Generation (MassNextGen) Initiative with one goal in mind, to shift the paradigm to build a diverse ecosystem with equal representation. With the support from sponsors, MassNextGen became a five year, more than $2 million commitment to ensure greater gender parity.

Over those five years, awardees of the program received a year-long customized package of support, which included non-dilutive grant funding and access to a network of seasoned professionals from the life sciences ecosystem helping them to refine their business strategies and effectively raise capital. In addition, the program fostered an organic community of entrepreneurs where awardees could collaborate with like-minded leaders sharing experiences, ideas, and a sense of belonging.

Minmin Yen

The CEO and Co-Founder of Phage Pro, worked on developing a bacteriophage product to combat household transmission of cholera during her thesis research. PhagePro was founded to both continue this work and develop phage products for emerging markets. Their initial target is cholera; by taking an oral product that offers immediate protection, families of patients infected with cholera will be able to take care of their loved ones without fear while also curbing outbreaks in the community. Since becoming a MassNextGen awardee, Dr. Yen has increased her full-time headcount to four employees, expanded her footprint at Tufts Launchpad, and raised $3.4 million in funding. Learn more.

Thank you to our champions!
The MLSC welcomed Mission BioCapital and LabCentral Ignite as the two newest sponsors of the MassNextGen program. Mission BioCapital will be providing $100,000 in award money to one or more selected awardees.

This program would not be possible without the support and partnerships of our coaches and sponsors. Your generosity has expanded opportunities for female entrepreneurs and their research, ultimately impacting global health. On behalf of the entrepreneurs, the MLSC, and the entire ecosystem, thank you!

Ready for Who's Nexxt
After five successful years, the MLSC knows there is more to be done but with a more inclusive focus. Beginning in 2023, the MLSC and its sponsors will launch the next five years of MassNextGen to all entrepreneurs that identify as but not exclusive of: Female; Black, African American, or Afro Caribbean; Hispanic, Hispanic American, or Latinx/Latin; Indigenous, Native American, or First Nation; Asian American, Pacific Islander, or Native Hawaiian; Transgender, Queer/Non Binary, Nonconforming/Agender; Living with visible disability, Living with invisible disability, or Neurodiverse; Veteran.

Katya Mantrova, M.D., Ph.D.,
^{Director of Industry Strategy and Investments}

Katya Mantrova on Strengthening our Entrepreneurial Community
"Entrepreneurs are change agents that turn new ideas into successful businesses. This exciting and risky process requires a variety of skills, experiences, and knowledge. Start-up companies with people from different backgrounds and cultures get the diversity of thought to be considered when brainstorming and problem-solving. A diverse team also provides a more extensive range of experiences and skills essential to growing a business. But entrepreneurial companies don't operate in a vacuum and need a community that understands their specific challenges and perspectives and intentionally acts to cultivate them. Therefore, a diverse pool of mentors, coaches and investors is imperative for entrepreneurial success. That is why our vision is to expand the MassNextGen initiative and contribute to strengthening the Commonwealth's entrepreneurial community." Connect with Katya: Email or LinkedIn

Translatable Opportunities: Massachusetts Building the Pipeline Toward Leadership in Women’s Health

The Center launched its Women’s Health Initiative in 2020 to turn the tide against the severe lack of organized capital and incentives around a coordinated Women’s Health approach. With continued strategic investment in this area, Massachusetts is poised to become the leader in the Women’s Health space. The current programs offered through the Initiative focus on increasing the number of translatable opportunities in women’s health at Massachusetts research institutions.

This year, the MLSC ran two programs, the Women’s Health program, which provides capital funding toward collaborative projects that aim to improve the discovery, technical innovation, and/or analysis of datasets to answer pressing life science questions

around women’s health. The Center awarded $748,114 to Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Industry partner, Genetech, for their research on the multiomic multiple sclerosis brain.

The First Look Awards supports early translational research performed by faculty and at a Massachusetts not-for-profit research institution. The Center awarded $150,000 in grant funding to support three projects at UMass Chan Medical, Harvard University, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Next year, in addition to new rounds of its capital programming and First Look Awards, the MLSC will relaunch its Women’s Health Innovation Grants that target innovations that have translational potential, preliminary supporting data, but still require a key set of proof-of-concept experiments prior to attracting a commercial partner or spinning out into a new company.

The current and future programming portfolio will focus on increasing the number of translatable opportunities in women’s health at Massachusetts research institutions.

Innovation is a foundational pillar of our ecosystem as we remain focused on providing strategic investment toward the next generation of researchers, technologies, and opportunities for Massachusetts to lead. The Life Sciences Center is incredibly proud to support our cutting-edge research institutions and accelerate collaboration between academia and industry."

Kenn Turner
MLSC President and CEO

Women’s Health Initiative
By The Numbers

Since FY20, MLSC funding has catalyzed:

26 projects targeting unmet needs in women’s health market
$7.2 million MLSC funding for developing infrastructure, $3 million MLSC funding for translational research
$8 million matched funding with 10+ industry partners
15 Massachusetts institutions funded

This includes Elizabeth H. Stover, MD, PhD, Physician/Assistant Professor of Medicine, of Harvard Medical School. A FY21 Innovation Grants awardee, Dr. Stover’s project is developing an implantable microdevice to measure drug responses in ovarian cancer patients. Industry partner, Kibur Medical, will develop the microdevice for commercial use. Numerous clinicians, research nurses, research coordinators, regulatory staff, lab staff worked on the project. Dr. Stover also received a Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Research Program Pilot Award totaling $250,000 in additional funding.

FY20 Women’s Health capital awardee Michael Busa, PhD, Director of the Center for Human Health & Performance at UMass Amherst, is seeking to create a novel, non-invasive, non-pharmalogical device-based system to treat hot flashes, which affects 80 percent of women. The project team has completed all milestones of the project and finalized the data collection phase of the research. They have enrolled 60 participants with 53 completing the data collection. Four publications have resulted from access to the MLSC-funded equipment through this effort.

Carla Reimold, Ph.D.
^{Vice President of Industry Strategy and Investments}

Carla Reimold on the Importance of Investing in Women's Health
"Women’s Health has long suffered from a lack of innovation and investment. The MLSC is working hard to provide the tools and funding to advance solutions for conditions which solely, disproportionately, or differently affect women. We’ve created three programs to address technologies at differing stages of maturity. It is our belief that in sponsoring more early-stage work, technologies can be advanced to such a stage that existing companies may partner, or they could be spun-out into new Massachusetts companies where they can thrive in our vibrant ecosystem. With time, we hope to drive development of meaningful therapies, diagnostics, and devices to improve the health and well-being of patients worldwide."

Connect with Carla: Email or LinkedIn

Investing in the Ecosystem’s Most Pressing Research and Infrastructure Needs

Since its inception, the MLSC has administered an open, competitive capital program to provide grants for projects that support the life sciences ecosystem in Massachusetts. In more recent years, to continue to serve the needs of the ecosystem, the Center designed its capital programming with added focus areas such as therapeutics delivery and data science. This enables MLSC funding to further drive innovation in these sectors, as well as industry and academic collaboration. Since 2018, more than 60 industry partners have collaborated with MLSC awardee institutions on capital projects across Massachusetts.

In the latest round of capital programming, the MLSC awarded more than $33 million in funds to support 17 projects through the Research Infrastructure program, the Novel Therapeutics Delivery program, and the Bits to Bytes program.

Since the Center’s inception, the MLSC has invested more than $570 million towards more than 220 capital projects throughout the Commonwealth. These projects have leveraged an additional $1.4 billion in funding.

Research Infrastructure: invests in innovative infrastructure across Massachusetts that is in high demand from both academic and industry scientists.

Novel Therapeutics Delivery: fosters the development of novel technologies and techniques for the delivery of existing or innovative therapies by partnering on projects at the intersection of engineering, biology, chemistry, and medicine.

Bits to Bytes: grants for scientific projects that generate and analyze large datasets to answer pressing life sciences questions, and to attract and train data scientists in the Commonwealth.

The Strongest Life sciences Sector is a Diverse One

The current times call for embracing the ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, while also leveraging the absolute best of what our Commonwealth is and can be. That's why in Massachusetts, we know that the strongest life sciences sector is a diverse one.

The MLSC was proud to support the United Negro College Fund’s (UNCF) Ernest E. Just Life Sciences Initiative with a $50,000 discretionary grant to create internship opportunities in the Boston-area for students enrolled in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The E.E. Just Initiative provided students an opportunity to spend 10 weeks interning at

various participating host companies from small to large size life sciences companies. Additionally, students received free housing at a local university, a professional mentor and guidance, training, and a welcoming community of peers and leaders. Above all, students gained valuable experience and a network of professionals to pave a path for a fulfilling career in the life sciences.

In the initiative's first year, 23 students were welcomed to Boston. The MLSC was honored to support six students through the Center's Internship Challenge program. These students interned at TripleRing Technologies, LabCentral, AngieX, and GelMedix.

UNCF was one of eight deserving organizations to receive a discretionary grant. In total, the MLSC dispersed $350,000 to support the life sciences ecoystem across Massachusetts.