About

PITCH (Program in Innovative Therapeutics for Connecticut’s Health) supports translational studies at Connecticut’s most highly funded research university. PITCH funds the research required to show that new therapeutics born from laboratories at this institution can treat cancer; bacterial and fungal infections; inflammatory and autoimmune conditions.

By providing a pathway for researchers to find new, potentially life-saving therapeutics based on their discoveries in the lab, PITCH brings real-world insight to academia.  An external advisory board of PhD trained scientists with startup, investor, and industry experience selects projects with the highest potential for scientific and commercial success.  Funded applicants are awarded an all-expenses paid scope of work needed to attract private dollars. 

Adapting ideas from the lab and translating them into prototype drugs for development of new medicines is time consuming and expensive.  PITCH accelerates this process with the goals of increasing biotech startups in Connecticut, recruiting additional venture investment to the state, and putting Connecticut on the map with a new paradigm for drug discovery.

PITCH By the Numbers

• 78+36: 78 Yale and 36 UConn applications to PITCH
• 23: projects funded by PITCH
• 32: investors from 21 firms heard pitches leading to 35 follow-up meetings
• 1M: over $1,000,000 in major infrastructure investments to support PITCH projects
  • State-of-the-art liquid handler for fluid transfer using sound
  • High-throughput instrument to capture live cell responses to small molecules
  • Instruments for detection of assay readouts in high-throughput formats and for reformatting compound libraries
  • Additional chemical libraries consisting of synthetic, natural product-like or drug-like compounds