Deborah Zanforlin, CEO and cofounder of ConquerX
It takes a certain type of person to launch a healthcare startup. It’s a life — not a job — that is infinitely challenging and all-consuming. Failure lurks around every corner.
Deborah Zanforlin had the courage to found a cancer diagnostics startup, ConquerX, at just 25-years-of-age. She has journeyed through some of the top U.S. incubator programs, building a technology platform, a prototype, a website and a passionate executive team.
What she doesn’t have is a U.S. visa.
More specifically, Zanforlin doesn’t have the money to pay for the residency tuition that will grant her an H1-B work visa. It’s an added challenge that most entrepreneurs don’t have to face.
Born and raised in Recife, Brazil, Zanforlin is not deterred easily. To raise the necessary funds — $20,000 — she has launched a generosity campaign organized through the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. There’s a short biography and even a video (embedded below) explaining the company and the cause.
It’s an incredible story, but does the science really stack up?
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
On a Skype call from Brazil, Zanforlin explained the company’s approach in more detail.
The technology seeks to diagnose cancer in the very early stages — coincidentally the same mission outlined by GRAIL, the Illumina spin-out that launched with $100 million in funding earlier this year.
ConquerX wants to develop a small, portable and cost-effective test that screens for small strands of non-coding RNA (microRNA) produced by cancer cells. They can theoretically be found in a small sample of a patient’s blood, but they are truly a drop in the ocean.
Different technologies are being explored as a way to increase diagnostic sensitivity, including droplet-based digital PCR, which fueled a major acquisition earlier this week. It involves partitioning a sample into millions of droplets and reading each one systematically.
The ConquerX approach removes the need for partitioning, amplification and sequencing. Instead, the platform uses a proprietary nanoparticle that selectively amplifies the electrochemical signal produced by the microRNA. Zanforlin said the company hopes to deliver the test at one-eighth of the cost of standard PCR assays. Clinical studies for lung cancer are planned for 2017.
The key discovery was made by Zanforlin back in 2014, while studying for her Ph.D., in Brazil. Her immediate reaction was to commercialize and expand upon the idea, she recalled, but her supervisor delivered an ultimatum. She could finish her Ph.D., or pursue the startup dream; she could not do both. That was the end of her Ph.D.
In 2015, she was one 0f 70 students, from a global pool of 800, accepted into the prestigious MIT Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. Zanforlin also received one of four scholarships, which paid the associated fees.
At the bootcamp, she met three other entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds and fields of expertise. Together they formed ConquerX and built out the leadership team.
The founders returned to their respective continents and worked via Skype for one year. In June 2016, they got a break. ConquerX had been selected as a finalist for the four-month MassChallenge program.
Zanforlin went all-in, flying to Boston with a one-way ticket and just $998 in the bank. Three weeks later, she learned by phone that her father had passed away. There was no money for round-trip tickets home, so she stayed in Boston working on her startup.
The prototype is now completed and a seed funding round is on the cards for 2017 (kept separate from Zanforlin’s personal costs).
To launch and be successful, Zanforlin believes ConquerX needs to be based somewhere around Boston, Massachusetts. But it’s incredibly hard to get a working visa for the United States, especially without having completed a Ph.D.
Once again, Zanforlin forged ahead and earned a spot as a Global Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the University of Massachusetts, which comes with an H1-B visa. All she needs now is the funding required to seize the opportunity.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSdRL1UilDI]
