Frontier BioHealth

Frontier BioHealth by Activation Capital is an educational and support program designed to provide highly specialized training, targeted mentorship, and relationship building to help scale pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, and health-focused consumer products companies. High-potential teams will receive customized educational programming to aid in navigating product and company scale-up, expert coaching from global thought leaders and serial biomedical entrepreneurs, and access to investors and corporate partners. The 2024 program will take place from August to November 2024 as a hybrid program, with fully-funded travel opportunities to the Richmond area.

Frontier BioHealth by Activation Capital showcases the rising momentum in Central Virginia’s life sciences sector. This includes the early successes of the advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing cluster scale-up efforts and the introduction of multiple sector-related educational / training programs. Frontier BioHealth curates a pipeline of promising companies that will help develop breakthrough solutions aligned with our regional thesis and cultivate a community of life sciences innovators.
Frontier BioHealth by Activation Capital, a venture development program based in Richmond, VA, funded [in part] through a Grant with the U.S. Small Business Administration, seeks up to ten startups tackling the biggest life sciences problems. These startups will participate in an inaugural 4-month program with customized support, including frameworks tailored to the life sciences commercialization journey, expert coaching, and connectivity to customers and investors.

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About the Program

Frontier BioHealth by Activation Capital will provide resources for up to ten startups driving the future of medicine and scientific discovery. Funded by Activation Capital, each company receives months of concierge, mentorship-based programming, networking opportunities, and custom-built educational programming to demystify life sciences venture-building and healthcare regulatory frameworks. Participants will make connections to local and national investor networks, receive support for engaging federal government funding, and receive hands-on guidance around deep tech venture building.

Funded [in part] through a Grant with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

This hybrid program (virtual with three in-person events) supports cutting-edge local entrepreneurs as well as startups from across the country that are focused on solving complex problems in precision medicine, pharmaceutical manufacturing, biomedical imaging technologies, artificial intelligence-driven diagnostic tools, remote patient monitoring, drug discovery platforms, regenerative medicine, and more – all aimed at significantly improving all varieties of life.

Frontier BioHealth will work with teams that look beyond the lab and understand that each breakthrough has the power to directly transform lives for individuals across the globe. Even if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, early-stage startup executive, or corporate innovator – there’s a place for you in this program to push forward our vision of enabling life sciences innovations to make an impact.

Upcoming Program

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Investment Terms

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To be announced soon!

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We are not currently accepting applications for this program.

Stay tuned. While there aren't any upcoming programs for this location at the moment, there are plenty of other available opportunities at gener8tor!

Explore Other Programming

Financial & In-Kind Support

Travel stipends to support in-person activities in and around the Virginia ecosystem. Office and lab co-working space within Activation Capital’s headquarters and incubator in Richmond, Virginia, can be provided during the program to participants already settled in or interested in locating their company in Richmond. Student intern availability for interested participants.

Focused Mentorship and Coaching

Sixteen weeks of individualized coaching and mentorship from targeted experts during bi-weekly, one-on-one meetings. No more than ten companies will be admitted per program to ensure the personalized focus of all the program’s time, energy, and network for founders.

Educational Programming

Weekly webinars featuring topics including understanding market size, federal funding opportunities, reimbursement, regulatory strategy, private investment strategies, how to engage investors and corporate partners – and more, custom-built features tailored to the selected cohort.

Exclusive, Invite-Only Stakeholder Reception

Exclusive reception during which participating companies can meet with 150+ entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, and community members in Richmond, VA.

Strategic Network

Activation Capital and its national-level partnerships with gener8tor, FedTech Studio, and FatRobin Consulting will employ their extensive networks to make highly relevant and impactful connections to corporate partners, investors, and experienced mentors.

$1M+ in Deals & Perks

As members of Morrow, startups gain access to valuable deals and perks from vendors such as IBM Cloud, Rackspace, Amazon, PayPal, Zendesk, and Microsoft.

Meet the 2024 Cohort

Atticus Pharma

Atticus Pharma has developed a unique, sustained-release system for delivering therapeutics directly to the skin. The first product uses this topical delivery technology to administer anandamide over 12-24 hours onto cutaneous lesions in lupus patients, significantly increasing the drug’s bioavailability and providing optimal therapeutic impact. The second product, for androgenic alopecia, will be evaluated in human subjects in 2024.
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Pele Therapeutics

Pele Therapeutics is at the forefront of patient in vivo protein therapy revolution to treat devastating and debilitating metabolic and fibrotic diseases with safer, effective, and–dare we say–affordable gene/protein therapy. Overcoming immune rejection, cancer risks, complexity and economic challenges of leading viral gene therapies, Pele Therapeutics’ economical, non-viral gene/protein therapy platform is ideally suited to disrupt the $2.6T U.S. diabetes and arthritis markets.
KeViRx

KeViRx is transforming acute lung injury patient care through the development of novel small molecule drugs. The current standard of care involves inconsistent steroid treatment or mechanical ventilation, which can further damage lungs, without addressing the root cause of the disease. KeViRx’s small molecule drugs heal underlying lung damage and restore lung function by regenerating lung cell connections and blocking inflammation. Acute lung injury is quite common, and is caused by viral diseases, like influenza and COVID, and inhaled chemicals, like chlorine gas. KeViRx’s lead asset is effective in chemical and viral preclinical models of acute lung injury and is advancing toward the clinic.
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Light Switch Bio

Light Switch Bio is developing an innovative approach for laser-targeted drug delivery to minimize life altering side effects of drugs by using lasers to activate drugs only where they're needed in the body. The lead product, IR-Platin, is a laser-targeted version of a common chemotherapy, cisplatin, that’s known for its efficacy but also serious toxicities in healthy tissues that can limit its use and increase average costs of care by $10,000 per patient.
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GenAssist

GenAssist has created MyoMatrix, a patented biomaterial that regrows muscle lost to disease or traumatic injury. MyoMatrix recreates the natural muscle environment with proteins that support and stimulate muscle stem cells already in the body, forming new functional muscle tissue as MyoMatrix resorbs.
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Ortho Preserve

OrthoPreserve’s meniscus replacement implant improves quality of life for people with knee injuries involving the meniscus. Traditional treatments remove the damaged meniscus tissue, which can lead to recurring pain and arthritis. OrthoPreserve’s meniscus implant preserves knee function by mimicking the natural knee tissue, reduces the risk of arthritis and needing a knee replacement, and helps patients recover quickly and return to pain-free activity.
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Gisens Biotech

Gisens Biotech’s saliva test allows patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) to monitor their health from the comfort of their home and receive personalized and timely care. Rather than constantly traveling to a clinic to undergo regular blood and urine tests, Gisens Biotech’s solution allows CKD patients to accurately assess kidney function within minutes by monitoring levels of urea and electrolytes from a single saliva sample.
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Oncoustics

Oncoustics creates advanced AI solutions for low cost, non-invasive surveillance, diagnostics, and treatment monitoring of diseases with high unmet clinical need. By applying AI to raw ultrasound signals, Oncoustics rapidly differentiates healthy versus diseased tissues via novel acoustic biomarkers for virtual biopsy tools, surgical guidance and drug development. Their prospectively collected >4M+ pieces of data is the largest RF signal dataset in the world and includes clinical data on liver, prostate, kidney, breast and thyroid diseases and cancers.
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Rapid Forensic Cell Typing

Rapid Forensic Cell Typing (RFCT) is revolutionizing criminal investigations by providing law enforcement and crime labs with a powerful SaaS platform that enables rapid identification and prioritization of forensic evidence. RFCT's innovative technology analyzes crime scene samples in minutes, not days, including the ability to estimate the age of the sample or time since deposition, significantly accelerating case timelines, reducing backlogs, and improving judicial outcomes.
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Vizma Life Sciences

Vizma Life Sciences’ device enables MRI scanners to directly visualize treatment response in days, rather than months. Vizma obliterates the concept of watchful waiting by providing timely insights into cancer treatment effectiveness, thereby empowering patients and their physicians to take meaningful action. This scalable breakthrough device leverages established clinical validation and positions Vizma to enhance an existing market of over 4 million annual cancer scans.
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What We’re Looking For

Frontier BioHealth is seeking startups in pharmaceutical, biotech, medical devices, and consumer health. It is open to local entrepreneurs as well as teams based anywhere in the United States. We embrace technologies requiring substantial research and development and teams ready to unlock their scientific discoveries’ commercialization potential.

Scientific Discoveries Ready to Scale

Startup teams transitioning life sciences innovations from research to commercialization, particularly those originating from academic or federal research labs, are highly encouraged to apply. Startups with a clear commercialization path, some initial funding (dilutive or non-dilutive), a full-time founder, licensing, optioning, or the ability to demonstrate control of their IP are highly encouraged to apply.

Partnerships

Activation Capital seeks to advance Virginia's life sciences entrepreneurial economy by investing resources, time, and capital in startups seeking opportunities to accelerate the commercialization of their technologies. The team at Activation Capital is highly involved throughout the program and looks forward to providing mentorship and building strong relationships with the founders. Activation Capital brings strong regional connectivity to investors and corporate partners in the Virginia region.

Passionate and Dedicated Founders

Taking an idea from the research and development phase into commercialization requires a combination of scientific experts and business professionals who understand first-hand the gaps within the healthcare and life sciences industries. We seek passionate founders dedicated to incubating, growing, and optimizing their businesses through valuable connections, mentorship, entrepreneurial programming, and exposure within the startup community.

Startups Primed for Growth

Based on our expertise in sales, marketing, go-to-market, strategy, and fundraising, we select startups that are primed for growth. If you are at a point where our network, resources, and expertise can scale your impact, we urge you to apply.

Interested in getting involved as a mentor, investor or support member?

Frontier BioHealth is also interested in hearing from serial entrepreneurs, biotech executives, pharma leaders, and senior life science program managers looking for connections to our deep tech startup companies, interested in viewing our educational programming, joining our networking events, or another way to be involved in Frontier BioHealth.

BECOME A MENTOR

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have more questions about our program? Browse our most frequently asked questions and answers here.

Startups in pharma, biotech, medical devices, and health technology that have a clear commercialization path, secured some initial funding (dilutive or non-dilutive), have a full-time founder, are licensed, optioned, or can demonstrate control of their IP are highly encouraged to apply.
No. However, Activation Capital can provide opportunities and incentives for companies interested in locating in the Richmond, Virginia, region.
Most of the program will take place virtually via Zoom. Three required in-person engagements are planned at the program’s beginning, middle, and end.
No investment is required, and Activation Capital takes no equity in participating companies. Activation Capital supports program costs and travel expenses.