Launching a startup from scratch and taking it from a promising idea to a thriving company is challenging under the best of circumstances. For the highly innovative life sciences sector, the challenges can be even more complex.
Solving many of these challenges is a core purpose of Palmetto InnovaSphere, a Spartanburg-based nonprofit focused on helping innovative startups in the life sciences, biotechnology and digital health sectors grow and thrive.
For founder and CEO Cecilia Zapata-Harms — who brings decades of experience working in life sciences strategic planning and research — helping meet the unique needs of such startups is both challenging and rewarding.
Building Palmetto InnovaSphere
Launching and scaling any type of startup poses several broadly similar challenges regardless of the type of business, including developing a business plan, raising capital and bringing enough talent on board.
For life sciences and biotechnology ventures, there is the added complexity of verifying the underlying science and navigating a regulatory environment for approval before any product can be brought to the market.
As Zapata-Harms explained, such hurdles can often be a barrier between a startup with a great idea and the capital it needs to succeed. Surmounting that barrier is among the reasons Zapata-Harms created Palmetto InnovaSphere.
Life sciences and biotechnology founders tend to be highly focused on solving the technical challenges surrounding their innovation. They might not have the expertise to handle the more mundane aspects of running a startup, so InnovaSphere offers a suite of wraparound services and expertise to help them succeed.
This “sphere” of support often involves pulling relevant experts from around the globe to validate the science or to help devise strategies to get the product from development to the market, Zapata-Harms said.
“We’re the executive team that supports the founder and the innovator,” she said. “So we do our own due diligence, and we want to understand the marketability of the technology.”
Part of InnovaSphere’s support helps the founder stay focused on innovation.
While funding is important, Zapata-Harms said it is not a magic bullet that fixes every problem. She added pursuing funding has often led founders to lose focus.
Reducing that risk through leveraging the support of strategic corporate partners, investors or economic development organizations is another key way InnovaSphere helps startups maintain a successful trajectory.
Although based in Spartanburg and often working closely with the economic development arm of OneSpartanburg, Palmetto InnovaSphere works with entities across South Carolina and throughout the Southeast. Rather than duplicating efforts, the nonprofit also works closely with other startup support organizations, like Greenville’s NextGEN, to match companies with available resources and opportunities.
Solving a problem
Every founder and company InnovaSphere works with starts with the same premise: Identify a problem in the marketplace and devise a solution. The drive to solve that problem often stems from personal experience.
Such was the genesis of Power of Patients, an online tool designed to collect and compile information from patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries in order to better connect them to treatment options.
The idea for the platform originated with founder Lynne Becker following a harrowing experience finding treatment for her daughter starting in 2015 after she suffered a TBI
Even now, 10 years later, the study and treatment of TBIs is still in its infancy, Becker said. The situation she and her family encountered a decade ago was confusing, frustrating and frequently alarming.
Becker’s daughter suffered 26 brain bleeds that went undetected for more than 18 months.
“Everything that could go wrong truly went wrong with that event,” Becker said. “All the doctors wanted to do was drug my daughter. … None of it was making sense to me.”
Becker eventually connected with a specialist in Pennsylvania who began unraveling all the things going on with her daughter’s injury, giving the family hope for the first time.
Crunching the data
The odyssey of finding effective treatment and rehabilitation for Becker’s daughter took nearly five years. During that time, Becker began tapping into her decades of experience in biostatistics and epidemiology.
Aside from being a zealous and diligent advocate for her daughter, Becker’s professional background paralleled the evolution of using the burgeoning internet to sort and disseminate the vast data generated by medical research trials.
Throughout her daughter’s ordeal, Becker said “Dr. Google” became her best friend and highlighted the alarming lack of research and clinical trials involving TBIs. For instance, she discovered in 2017 that there were only about 1,200 registered clinical trials on TBIs at that point, compared to hundreds of thousands involving cancer treatments.
“That was when I had an ‘a-ha’ moment — well there’s our knowledge gap,” Becker said. “We don’t know enough. We’re not asking the right questions.”
Becker’s experience with her daughter’s condition combined with her background in big data convinced her she could build a system that would capture all of the data from TBI patients. That information would not only help patients and their families understand the injuries but could be a powerful tool to help shape research and clinical trials that would advance understanding and treatment options for brain injuries.
Thus was born Power of Patients and its virtual therapy dog, Sallie. The platform provides patients with a tool to track symptoms and triggers.
It is named after the real therapy dog that has helped Becker’s daughter. Since Becker has walked a similar path to the millions of people dealing with TBIs, the tool reflects an intuitive understanding of what patients and their families are going through.
The platform launched in October 2020, and 200 patients were registered by December 2020. That number has since grown to more than 2,000 in 16 countries and also includes several hundred clinicians.
Because of the comprehensive data Sallie pulls in from patients, patterns have emerged and similarities with other conditions have been observed. For instance, Becker said medical researchers evaluating some of the data have noted similarities between the symptoms and pathologies of TBIs with conditions such as sickle cell anemia, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
Moving the needle
With a product that shows potential to transform medical research involving a range of conditions beyond brain injuries, Becker moved to Greenville last fall and began connecting with state and local organizations that might help grow the company.
Through contacts she developed with SCbio and SC Competes, Becker eventually connected with Zapata-Harms and the team at Palmetto InnovaSphere. She said the organization’s life sciences focus and business expertise have helped her position her company to be ready to scale.
Becker said the timing also coincides with a fundamental shift of where people are taking a more proactive role in their medical care.
“(Our platform) speaks to people really taking control, and the timing of Sallie and Power of Patients is … really on the cusp of that wave,” she said. “That’s the power behind turning their words into data for them.”
With the help of InnovaSphere, Becker is in the process of connecting with potential investors who can help the company grow.
“I really feel that they will be able to help me navigate these waters,” she said.
Joining the Palmetto InnovaSphere
Among the services Palmetto InnovaSphere provides life sciences startups and scale ups are:
- Vetting and verification of underlying science
- Market research and analysis
- Connections to potential investors and capital
- Strategic planning and marketing consultancy
- Connections to mentors and subject matter experts
“It only takes one company to have an exit that’s going to be pivotal, that we can actually broadcast from the top of the mountains and say, ‘Look at us!’”
— Cecilia Zapata-Harms, Palmetto InnovaSphere CEO
Powerful potential
The comprehensive data generated by the Power of Patients Sallie platform has the potential to aid clinical research into a variety of health conditions beyond traumatic brain injuries, including:
- Parkinson’s disease
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Sickle cell anemia
- Stroke
