Press Releases

- Jul 24, 2018 - The Pistoia Alliance has announced today that entries for its 2018 President’s Startup Challenge are now open, and will close on Monday, 3rd September 2018. The annual competition is open to informatics and technology startups who are aiming to overcome obstacles to advancing life science R&D. Two of the winners will win $20,000, along with a six-month mentorship with industry professionals from companies including top ten pharmas and other successful startups, and access to Monocl’s stakeholder platform. The remaining finalists will each receive $5,000 towards the further development of their solutions.

The prestigious competition offers the chance for five finalists to pitch their solutions in-person to a panel of industry judges and experts at The Pistoia Alliance’s annual US conference in Boston, MA, on 10th October, 2018. Entries are welcome from global startups on a range of themes; previous years have included those focused on AI, deep and machine learning, the IoT, blockchain, voice technology, and clinical trial platforms. Previous winners of the President’s Startup Challenge have included US startups, Pine Biotech and Medley Genomics, and French startup, Medexprim.

Dr Patrice Milos, Co-Founder and CEO of Medley Genomics, and President’s Start-up Challenge Grand Prize Winner in 2017, said of her win, “As a startup aiming to accelerate precision cancer therapies through deep data analytics to better understand the patient, we were honoured to be recognised by such an important organisation transforming healthcare across the biopharma industry, as The Pistoia Alliance.”

Dr Steve Arlington, President of The Pistoia Alliance, commented, “The productivity crisis that has challenged the pharmaceutical industry for many years shows no sign of easing. The Pistoia Alliance sees the startup community as a crucial resource to tackle this crisis, and we must support it and improve collaboration across the board. The President’s Challenge allows us to see first hand the innovation which is taking place inside these startups and align our projects with the technology of the future.”

For more details about the challenged and information on how to enter, visit the competition website at: http://www.pistoiaalliance.org/projects/presidents-challenge-2018/.