Startups

Breakout Labs backs antibacterials, genomics and biosensor tattoos

From California to Boston to NYC, four more life science startups have been accepted into the Thiel Foundation's Breakout Labs, a philanthropic incubator for seed-stage companies.

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From California to Boston to NYC, four more startups have been accepted into the [Peter] Thiel Foundation’s Breakout Labs, a philanthropic incubator for seed-stage companies.

Founded in 2012, Breakout Labs has now invested in some 34 companies at the intersection of biology and technology. It provides up to $350,000 in non-dilutive funding as part of its two-year program to get promising startups off the ground. There’s also a laundry-list of value-adds, including introductions to investors, strategic advisors, and industry partners.

Unsurprisingly, it’s competitive.

“Typically, we fund 8-10 companies per year, after fielding on the order of 300 interested applicants,” explained Breakout Labs’ Scientific Director Hemai Parthasarathy, in an email forwarded by a company representative. “We don’t fund in cohorts. We fund on a rolling basis,”

Whether it’s the program itself or the caliber of the applicants, there have been some early success stories in the incubator’s portfolio. Just last week, Azitra closed a $2.9 million Series A for a bacteria-based biotherapeutic designed to treat common skin conditions.

“Most often, we are working with scientist-entrepreneurs as startup leaders, and it’s been rewarding to see them navigate the development of a company with the same intelligence, drive, curiosity, and joy with which they may have previously only led laboratory research,” said Parthasarathy.

On that note, here are the latest four startups that won over the selection team.

SciBac — Headquartered in Milpitas, California, SciBac wants to combat antibiotic-resistant infections with smart colonies of healthy bacteria. It’s one of many companies targeting Clostridium difficile (C. diff), a potentially fatal and often recurring gastrointestinal infection. To succeed, SciBac has a three-pronged approach to outcompeting the bad guys. Using what it calls “rEvolutionary” live biotherapeutics, it stops colonization, neutralizes toxins and – for good measure –  directly kills C. diff organisms.

The company is also developing a single-strain inhaled biotherapeutic for patients with cystic fibrosis. That therapy aims to break down the problematic mucus in the patient’s lungs, while also suppressing dangerous Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria.

Gel4Med — Boston, Massachusetts-based Gel4Med is also taking a crack at antibiotic resistance, drawing on the fields of regenerative medicine and bioengineering.

Its lead product is a “flowable tissue scaffolding matrix” that encourages organic tissue healing. Crucially, the matrix can also fend off infection without the use of antibiotics.

Surgical and accidental wounds represent a pretty large market, which CEO Manav Mehta is ambitiously planning to pursue.

“Our solution, G4Derm, will one day treat patients suffering from wounds ranging from diabetic foot ulcers to battle-field injuries, by preventing infection and promoting tissue regeneration without the concerns of creating further antibiotic resistance — all while being administered quickly and easily by any healthcare professional,” Mehta said in a statement issued Thursday.

LogicInk — San Francisco, California-based LogicInk wants to objectively prove that tattoos are a great vehicle for self-expression. The company has designed a programmable temporary tattoo that changes shape and color to convey specific health information about the user. It’s free of electronics and instead taps into the power of chemistry and biology. CEO Carlos Olguin believes the technology is part of a wider digital health movement.

“We’re meeting the demand of a growing population of users who want to know more about their bodies, and their surrounding environment, and live healthier lives, without the barriers and limitations of existing devices,” Olguin noted.

Envisagenics — New York City startup Envisagenics has set up camp in the genomics space, creating a software as a service (SaaS) tool for RNA-seq data analysis and interpretation in the cloud. By sifting through the noise with machine learning and smart algorithms, the platform can help researchers pinpoint genes affected by errors in alternative splicing, including those found in cancer and genetic diseases. This could lead to the discovery, prioritization, and validation of new drugs and biomarkers.

Photo: Olivier Le Moal, Getty Images

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