News & Events
BioInc@NYMC Celebrates its Fifth Anniversary With Expansion
BioInc@NYMC, the biotechnology incubator at New York Medical College’s campus in Valhalla, has just opened its expanded space in celebration of its five-year anniversary.
“What started as a vision grew into this incubator filled with nine biotech businesses, which has produced more than 40 new jobs and more than 30 new patents, [and] is now growing even bigger. What an incredible resource for this region,” says New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins.
Since launching in October 2014, BioInc@NYMC has supported start-up companies including MediSprout, a telehealth company which provides a platform for virtual doctor visits, Affina Biotechnologies, a drug discovery startup, and Sapience Therapeutics, which develops therapeutic options that address difficult-to-treat cancers.
The incubator’s economic impact (which includes investment into and capital spending by its startups, as well as any cost savings received by startups as a result of being part of the incubator), is estimated to be in excess of $16 million.
Barry Kappel, Ph.D., M.B.A., president, CEO, and director of Sapience Therapeutics
“The flexibility afforded at BioInc has allowed us to remain right-sized as our organization and needs have grown from a single lab bench to multiple laboratories,” says Barry Kappel, Ph.D., M.B.A., Sapience Therapeutics president, director, and CEO. “We could not have achieved the scientific advances we have over the past few years without the resources and support of BioInc.”
The additional 9,500 square feet of space added to the 10,000 sq. ft. wing BioInc already occupied provides clients with new offices, conference rooms, shared-space desks, and collaboration/event space for seminars.
BioInc received more than $3 million from the GenNYsis program and received $750,000 as a New York State Innovation Hot Spot. Empire State Development and the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Council provided over $600,000 for the incubator’s expansion and more than $4 million in capital grants for the initial construction.
New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins with Robert W. Amler, M.D., M.B.A. Dean, School of Health Sciences and Practice Vice President for Government Affairs
Edward C. Halperin, M.D., M.A., chancellor and chief executive officer of New York Medical College, has committed himself to creating a home on the campus for biomedical companies, where ideas would be brought to the college for possible commercialization, since his arrival seven years ago. Today, this idea is still a driving point of the life-saving work done at BioInc.
“The biomedical sciences in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Canada are successful examples of how partnership of university, governments, and private enterprise has produced progress in biomedical sciences in the history of the world. ‘Prove it’ you say? Anesthesia, insulin, and MRI scans to name a few,” says Halperin. “Over the College’s past 159 years and the incubator’s past five, I can say, collectively, we have an honorable past, a great present, and an exciting future.”