WILMINGTON, Del. — July 30, 2019 — The DuPont FastPass competition is designed to accelerate and enhance the innovation and commercialization potential of early stage science startups by leveraging the innovation experiences and capabilities of DuPont combined with the infrastructure and business building expertise of the Delaware Innovation Space.
“DuPont is fortunate to be able to partner with the local scientific and business community through programs like FastPass,” said DuPont’s Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer Alexa Dembek. “Our goal is to help accelerate the success of these talented entrepreneurs by lending our insights and capabilities in partnership with the Delaware Innovation Space.”
“The Delaware Innovation Space is excited to be combining our capabilities and expertise with DuPont, one of our foundational partners, to assist MCET and Veramorph in rapidly growing their startups,” said Bill Provine, CEO of the Delaware Innovation Space. He continues, “a FastPass competition is designed to lower the funding barrier and quickly establish deep connections with the Delaware Innovation Space and our partners, significantly reducing development cycle times and propelling science entrepreneurs forward.”
MCET Technologies is a startup developing and integrating advanced sensors and electronics into conventional textiles without adding significant weight or changing the texture or feel of the fabric. MCET’s initial focus is on tracking physical rehabilitation as well as exploring new applications in sports science and training, automotive and aerospace industries, and biomedical devices.
When asked what attracted him to the FastPass competition, Sagar Doshi, MCET CEO answers, “The ability to leverage the resources in terms of materials characterization equipment and expertise of the personnel from the Delaware Innovation Space along with the chance to work closely with industry experts from DuPont will provide a platform for MCET Technologies to grow into a successful company.” As a spin out from the Center for Composite Materials at the University of Delaware, his team has deep fundamental research experience, so Sagar is excited to learn from people who are experts in commercializing fundamental materials research. “DuPont’s experience working with materials at industrial scales will help our startup develop an improved product, benefiting us immensely,” said Doshi.
According to David Rosenfeld, a DuPont Electronics & Imaging Technical Fellow, MCET has “developed a new material that will be interesting to explore how it fits into our current offerings and how it might allow us to extend into new application spaces.”
Veramorph is a startup that leverages an advanced proprietary hydrogel based oral drug delivery platform to help pharmaceutical companies improve the performance of their products and reduce the cost and time to bring them to market. This startup was spun out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2017.
“Veramorph will gain valuable insight into regulatory requirements for excipient manufacturing from DuPont experts in the Nutrition & Biosciences business. Veramorph also will be able to develop a differentiated consumer product in collaboration with DuPont by using their market-leading nutritional ingredients,” said Paul Godfrin, CEO of Veramorph. He continues, “As a result, Veramorph can also perform critical de-risking activities that will allow us to rapidly break into the pharmaceutical industry.”
Robert Schmitt, Technical Fellow of DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences, is intrigued as “Veramorph has put together a strong team and aligned their technology to a key need within the Pharma market.” Schmitt continues, “DuPont has deep experience commercializing novel polymer solutions in this market and we can provide our historical perspective to accelerate Veramorph’s product development cycle.”
In addition to directly interacting with DuPont experts, both MCET and Veramorph are awarded as part of the FastPass up to one year of free access to the capabilities of the Delaware Innovation Space. This includes turnkey wet laboratory and office spaces, access to a wide range of high-end chemistry and biotech scientific equipment, strategic business development, technical and fundraising programming tailored to the specific needs of each startup.
“Not many start-up competitions offer access to both R&D resources and business mentorship, which is a powerful combination of resources for early stage companies,” said Paul Godfrin, CEO of Veramorph. He continued, “It is critical for early stage start-ups to validate both their value proposition(s) and the means of value creation (i.e., the business model) and doing so with the input of a potential partner and customer is invaluable.”
“The DuPont FastPass will provide an early-stage startup like ours with systematic and organized mentorship along with rigorous and rapid education toward accelerating our growth and gaining years of knowledge in only a few months,” said Sagar Doshi, CEO of MCET.
Posted July 30, 2019
Source: Delaware Innovation Space
