Perinton firm a finalist for $1M Buffalo business prize
Even as he battled a potentially life-changing ailment in an Arizona hospital in 2011, Bill Rader focused on the patients around him and vowed to help make their lives easier if he made it through his ordeal.
Now, three years later, Rader is making good on his promise. His Perinton-based company, Raland Therapeutics, is among the 11 finalists announced Thursday in the $5 million 43North business competition.
The state-sponsored business contest attracted nearly 7,000 applications from 96 countries and all 50 states. Batavia startup Medical Conservation Devices (MCD) is the only other Rochester-area company on the list of finalists. Eight other Rochester-area companies made the list of semifinalists, but failed to move into the final round.
Raland Therapeutics specializes in creating implantable biosensors that track a patient's response to chemotherapy and helps doctors personalize medication delivery.
"This is a validation of our hard work and the efforts of the University of Rochester Medical Center. It helps to validate what we're doing by third parties looking at our efforts. When you can do that the investors have a little bit more confidence in what you're doing as well," Rader said.
Rader's product is based on his own patents and patents licensed from the University of Rochester.
Brian Bell, co-founder and CEO of MCD, said being a finalist is "definitely a big deal in our minds."
"As an entrepreneur, not only do you have to come up with a great idea to change the world, but you have to convince other people that it's a great idea," Bell said. "So having a platform like 43North not only adds validation to that, but it's a much louder voice than a startup company can sometimes create on their own."
The competition is offering one top prize of $1 million, six $500,000 prizes and four $250,000 prizes. The finalists will compete in front of a panel of judges on Oct. 30 in Buffalo where the winners will be named. All the finalists will get incubator space, mentoring and other business services.
One company also will win a $10,000 People's Choice Award, sponsored by Larkin Development Group, which will go to a team that generates the most tweets by Oct. 30 using a hashtag assigned to their company. Raland's hashtag is #43North10. MCD's hashtag is #43North9.
Rader also runs Raland Compliance Partners, a consulting company that helps clients in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries with the FDA approval process. His other company, Raland Therapeutics, can be traced to a two-month stay at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he was treated for a flare-up of multiple sclerosis in 2011.
"I was paralyzed on my right side and I was told I'd never walk again and I'd be permanently disabled. It was a dark time, and I said if I can just get through all this stuff I'm going to make a difference. It took over a year to get out of the wheelchair and then another two years to really get the walking back under control," Rader said.
In the clinic, Rader met many other patients with cancer. And many friends and relatives have suffered from cancer. So it became the focus of his efforts to fulfill his vow to make a difference in the world.
So far, Raland Therapeutics has spent about $1.2 million on development, including a $245,000 National Institutes of Health grant. Rader expects to have a product on the market in about five years.
Bell and MCD co-founder and chief medical officer Dr. Bradley Furman are developing a low-cost, portable anesthesia and life-support machine.
"It provides life-support capability and also anesthesia delivery from one patient all the way up to eight patients at one time," Bell said.
MCD started in 2009. Since then, $3 million has been invested, including $1 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army.
"In an underdeveloped country, access to critical care infrastructure is something that is just not capable with today's technology," Bell said.
Bell said he will file for FDA approval by the end of this year and hopefully have the device on the market in 2015.
The 43North prize money would allow MCD to hire people now working as outside consultants and make them full-time employees.
"Ultimately it will allow us to get the regulatory clearance, get the right people to help support the regulatory clearance and ultimately allow us to start commercial sales in 2015," Bell said.
BLOUDON@DemocratandChronicle.com