Jesse Rinehart (Associate Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology & Systems Biology Institute, Yale School of Medicine) and Farren Isaacs (Associate Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Yale University) are scientists whose ground-breaking work has been published in some of the world’s leading scientific journals. However, what motivates them to get up in the morning is “not the daily grind of the research, but the impact that it can have on the world.” Their current research is focused on doing something potentially groundbreaking for human health – developing novel approaches and compounds to treat aggressive cancers. Rinehart and Isaacs have identified inhibitors that may be able to treat Glioblastoma – the most aggressive form of brain cancer. The median survival rate for those being treated for Glioblastoma is 14.6 months.
The PITCH program is providing Rinehart and Isaacs with the funding and infrastructure to build, design, and test a variety of new chemicals to determine which compounds make sense to pursue and champion as the earliest form of a drug to fight Glioblastoma. Rinehart and Isaacs agree that PITCH is providing them with the resources and know how to translate their advances in the academic lab to the commercial marketplace. Isaacs explains, “We want to break the silos in academia down and get our innovations out, and have an impact on the world and on people. The PITCH program gives us an opportunity to do that using resources we wouldn’t have. What would take us 5-10 years to do will hopefully be brought down to 2-3 years because of PITCH.”
Getting the funding to bring to market a drug to treat Glioblastoma is no easy task. Rinehart and Isaacs agree that juggling the demands of teaching, research, and running a lab makes it tricky to travel the world to meet with potential investors. They explain, “It is not possible for one lab or one investigator to bring together the powerhouse of investors that PITCH can. Typically, if you are going out on your own and setting up these meetings it is your full-time job. You need to have 100 meetings to get 1 investor on average. This past June 8th, PITCH was able to bring together 23 serious investors in one day. Having the opportunity to present to them on a single day organized by the PITCH program probably saved us 30 days of individual meetings. The exposure PITCH has given our project has been tremendous.” For Rinehart and Isaacs it is not only about exposure, but also preparation. The staff and advisory board of PITCH provides advice on how to position and pitch their work to investors. Rinehart explains, “Before my work with PITCH I had zero experience pitching to investors, but with their help I went from 0 to 60 in about two seconds. I had been working on my investment presentation with the PITCH program for about a year when I had the opportunity to compete in a pitch contest as part of an entrepreneurial day at Yale. I was up against 10 start ups in all sectors and there was no way I would have won if I were not part of the PITCH program.”
Rinehart and Isaacs agree that the PITCH program enables translational research that may one day save lives – and it is all happening right here in Connecticut – the state where they work and live, and where they hope to see their own company get launched. They feel that “PITCH is a great economic opportunity for the state to maintain and attract top level talent and to reignite the biotech and pharma strength that was once a hallmark of Connecticut.”
*Image of Jesse Rinehart and Farren Isaacs, Photo by Frank Poole