Science Based Business

At the yels.net summer event on 18 June, FarmaScreen was awarded the NGI Venture Challenge 2009. Farmascreen, a company that develops biochips for high throughput tox screening, received a prize of € 25.000. Two members of the FarmaScreen team, Lily Xu and Erik Wielhouwer ,are alumni of the SBB Orientation on Entrepreneurship course.

All too often research findings fail to be translated into new products or services. The NGI Venture Challenge, a combination of a competition and a coaching event, wants to change this. The Challenge is open to Life Sciences researchers who want to turn promising research results into a business. During the pitch, experienced business coaches help the researchers to transform their findings into venture plans. The outcome: a sound business case that allows for a convincing presentation to investment partners and attracts early-stage funding. The Venture Challenge was initiated in 2008.

June 18th the NGI Venture Challenge 2009 was awarded to FarmaScreen. FarmaScreen is an early stage research enterprise that will soon be spun-off from Leiden University. The company will offer a prototype of a patent-pending biochip which can be used as a safety screen in the drug pipeline. It allows automated screening of compounds on zebrafish embryos at medium- to high-throughput. It produces large quantities of high-quality data that can reliably predict a compound's toxicity, at a fraction of the cost of mouse and rat screenings.
The commercial potential of the biochip is high.

The prize of € 25.000 will be used to start up the financing process.

Photo impression of the NGI Venture Challenge, including Erik holding the big cheque!

2009 was the fourth year in a row the ABN AMRO summer school was organized. The Summer School is a national competition where students use their business idea tot write a business plan. The Summer School is a collaboration between thirteen colleges of higher education and universities.

This year, the regional programme of the Summer School was organized by HOPE entrepreneurship (a co-operation between the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Delft University of Technology and SBB from Leiden University). By dealing with many aspects of entrepreneurship, the regional programme offered the students a crash course in entrepreneurship. The location varied daily and Tuesday the 8th it was SBB its  turn to welcome the students. 

After various workshops, lectures and advice, the 15 teams handed in a complete business plan to the jury on Thursday. On Friday they departed for the national final round at the Dialogues House of the ABM AMRO Bank in Amsterdam.

The jury elected the team of Jean and Joel, two students of the Delft University of Technology from Kameroen, as the regional winners. They defended the honour of HOPE in Amsterdam with their plan to bring light to the darkness in developing countries. They won the first prize with the Ndassie Light which is shaped like a firefly and has a solar-powered charging station. A strict jury with Henk Keilman and Arko van Brakel made it difficult for the candidates.

After due deliberation, the HOPE team was elected winner of the Summer School 2009. The social interest, sustainability and the business proposal were the deciding factors. The winners received five thousand euros and a yearís consultancy services from the ABN AMRO Bank for their golden idea.

Next year, HOPE again has a fine challenge to put together a multidisciplinary group of students in order to combine knowledge and quality. Students with a talent for entrepreneurship, innovative ideas and the drive to launch their product or service on the market are therefore very welcome.