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Wharton BPC Finalist Proves Cross-campus Convergence Can Lead to a Successful (and Lifesaving) Business Plan.
Dan Hammer and Mike Therien, Penn professors from separate disciplines and respected scientific researchers, didn't think much about starting a company until grad student Peter Ghoroghchian showed up on campus.
Now thanks partly to Ghoroghchian, they are advisers to a startup — Leto Pharmaceuticals — that was a finalist in this year's Wharton Business Plan Competition. The competition is open to any team that includes a University of Pennsylvania student, and Ghoroghchian's participation shows how it draws interest and entrants from across campus.
Leto, led by Ghoroghchian and Will Shen, a Wharton MBA student, is trying to commercialize Hammer's and Therien's inventions. It would use polymersomes, devised by Hammer and several collaborators, to treat cancer. The polymersomes — infinitesimally tiny biodegradable particles — would deliver both light-emitting molecules created by Therien and drugs to cancer-ridden parts of the body. Therien's imaging agents allow doctors to identify cancerous cells that would be invisible using traditional methods. Initially, the company will focus on treating breast tumors, though its technology can apply to a host of cancers.
"What Peter did as part of his PhD research was to figure out a way to package Mike's molecules within our polymersomes," Hammer explains. Ghoroghchian is pursuing a doctorate in bioengineering and a medical degree. Hammer, a professor of bioengineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Therien, a professor of chemistry in the School of Arts and Science, are his dissertation advisers.
"Mike's imaging agents hadn't been used in biology because they didn't have an appropriate carrier," Ghoroghchian explains. "The polysome was the right carrier, and we realized that it had the ability to do a whole span of applications." Polysome is Ghoroghchian's shorthand, now trademarked, for polymersome.
Ghoroghchian earned his bachelor's degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he worked in the lab of famed researcher Bob Langer and had caught the biotech bug. Langer has more than 500 issued or pending patents and is considered one of the fathers of the modern biotech industry.
From his arrival at Penn in 2000, "Peter was always looking for a technology that could be commercialized," Hammer recalls. "My first goal is to get a paper in Science magazine, but Peter was definitely thinking about applications the whole way." Even so, he hasn't slacked off in his pursuit of basic research. "Peter has eight to 10 papers he's written in three years," Hammer points out. "That's remarkable."
Once Ghoroghchian settled on a technology with commercial promise, he had to figure out how to turn it into a company. Neither he nor his advisers, lacking entrepreneurial experience, knew how to do that.
Enter Shen. He came to the Wharton School from California where he earned a doctorate in chemical engineering at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Ca and was then hired in 2001 by Alexza Pharmaceuticals headquartered nearby. Shen was the firm's third employee. There, he managed everything from R&D to raising money. Today, Alexza has about 120 employees and has just sold stock to the public.
After arriving at Wharton Shen met Ghoroghchian, Hammer and Therien through the Penn Biotech Group, a campus-wide club. The professors had engaged the club for a consulting project on the commercial potential of their inventions. Shen led the consulting team.
The three Penn scientists quickly realized that Shen was just the sort of person whom they were seeking to lead the business side of the company that was only beginning to take shape in their minds. Therien calls Shen "brilliant and energetic," while Ghoroghchian adds, "Will has a lot of drive — and he has the MBA and PhD combination."
Shen returns the compliment, saying, "Peter is very observant of the business issues. He asks great questions."
Once they found each other, entering the Wharton Business Plan Competition was almost a done deal. Shen had been seeking an idea around which he might write a plan, and Ghoroghchian knew that any startup had to have one. "The WBPC was an opportunity for us to sit down and think about what we needed to do and come out with a compelling story," Shen explains.
Both Ghoroghchian and Shen have one more year at Penn before they finish their programs. In the meantime, they're hoping to land seed funding for Leto. "We've been talking with a number of venture capital firms on an informal basis," Shen notes. With their strong showing in the Wharton Business Plan Competition, their now-polished pitch should get an eager reception.
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