Recognising that life sciences is a very specific field, where expert support and mentorship in creating a business is sorely lacking in Lithuania, the StartBIO initiative was taken up by three partners with different experience in the field of life sciences and business development - 2AM Health, Vilnius University Life Sciences Center and Northtown Vilnius operator of a specialised innovation industrial park in Vilnius dedicated specifically to life sciences companies.
According to Vilnius University Life Sciences Center director prof. Daumantas Matulis, cooperation between science and business and the transfer of scientific discoveries into practice is one of the most important goals of science, but it is also a very difficult task, because usually a scientist is not a businessman. “They can create inventions, but for commercialisation they usually lack entrepreneurial knowledge,” says prof. D. Matulis and emphasises that the StartBIO programme is unique in that it aims to provide researchers with business knowledge, specifically in the field of life sciences, because the results of scientific research are most valuable when they reach end users, especially if they are health-related innovations and the real help is felt by the patients.
2AM Health co-founder Monika Nair emphasises that due to strong regulation and the importance of intellectual property, the field of life sciences is characterised by different laws of commercialisation and complexity than other industries. “Therefore, the greatest value from entrepreneurial skills development programmes in this area is created when the programme and expert profiles are specialised in the life sciences,” says M. Nair. The second co-founder of 2AM Health Aurelija Galvelytė agrees and adds that one of the most important moments to commercialise an idea is individualized support from highly skilled experts in this field. It allows participants to understand more clearly what stages lie ahead in growing a life science start-up, what challenges they will inevitably face, and see new opportunities in their work.
According to the CEO of Northtown Vilnius, dr. Gediminas Pauliukevičius, the life sciences industry in Lithuania has been accelerating for several years, but there are two important factors that currently prevent the potential of the life sciences industry from being exploited - these are the lack of physical infrastructure, which would allow life science start-ups to grow faster, as well as the lack of strong specialised mentoring and acceleration programmes. “In the field of incubation and acceleration, we have accumulated a solid experience of almost two decades, which is effective and which we share in international projects, but when it comes to the field of life sciences - the situation is somewhat different - so far we do not have an effective ecosystem that helps to transfer impressive discoveries and achievements from laboratories to business and everyday life. There are, of course, successful individual examples, but we do not have a system to help smoothly grow life sciences businesses. We put a lot of hope in a national acceleration program, but until we are waiting for it, we still need to move forward, using the experiences and models of other countries. Therefore, the greatest value of StartBIO that participants can expect is individualised support on the way from the laboratory to business, and cooperation with an international team of experienced lecturers, mentors, and experts”, says dr. G. Pauliukevičius.
Seven teams of participants will be selected to participate in the programme, and they will grow their ideas in cooperation with international experts for 7 weeks, to identify the commercialisation potential of their ideas, research results or developed technology, and model the possible path of their idea into a real business.
The StartBIO programme is intended for life sciences master’s and doctoral students, as well as researchers and innovators in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, bioinformatics, health/medical engineering. Registration is open until February 18.
