Nesher Tech I-Corps@NIH 121014

Method for Analysis of

Single Molecules in

Bio-Medical Research

Nesher Technologies Inc.nanobiotech for smarter diagnostics

and cutting-edge biomedical research

Team 14

Size of Opportunity:

TAM (high-end microscopes): ~$20-40M/y

SAM (ALEX analyzers) ~100 over 5 years, Avg. ~$3M/y

Initial Idea:

Turn-key instrument of laser-based single molecule

detection technology for academic labs

Total interviews: 103

Avg/wk: 10.3

Business Model Canvas Week 1

*Hypothesis:

Research customers in academia want standardized turnkey

instruments

Experiments:

Interviews with academic researchers and lab directors• Dr. Nils Walter (Prof. of Chemistry, Univ.of Michigan)

• Dr. Fareed Aboul-ela (Prof. Zewail City of Science and Technology, Egypt)

• Dr. Lori Goldner (Prof. Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst)

• Dr. Laurent Bentolila (Scientific Director of the Advanced Light Microscopy/

Spectroscopy Lab, California NanoSystems Institute

• Dr. Piotr Marszalek (Professor of

Mechanical Engineering, Duke Univ.)

• Dr. David Lilly (Prof. of Molecular

Biology, Director of the Cancer

Research UK Nucleic Acid Structure

Research Group, Univ. of Dundee)

Week 3,

30 total

Research Customer Archetype

• Expertise in biophysics/biochemistry

• Interested in the dynamic behavior of biomolecules

• Has published in life sciences journals

• Expertise in labeled fluorescence measurements

Dr. Nils Walter (Professor of Chemistry,

Director, Single Molecule Analysis

in Real-Time (SMART) Center,

Univ. of Michigan)

ResearchScientist

(PI)

High endMicroscope

Core Facility

End User(Graduate Students

Postdocstechnicians)

Core Director

PurchasingAgent

End User(Graduate Students

Postdocstechnicians)

ResearchScientist

(PI)

Core Manager

DepartmentHead

Influence

Money

Academic Market Ecosystem

$100k???

we don’t have that

kinda money right

now!!!

* Few “must have” responses

Customers need to “see” the product

Purchases may need to be funded through grants

Competitors include Leica, Picoquant, home brew systems

Customer validation required pre-purchase

It’s time to

Decision Made

Business Model Canvas Week 4

* 29 new

Hypothesis:

• Microscope companies would want our technology as an add-on module

• Biotech/ Pharma may want special assays to augment drug discovery

Experiments:

• Interviewed science/ business/ leadership people in industry

• Interviewed contract manufacturer

What we learned:• Have not found any needs within mainstream R&D in pharma/ biotech

• Current pharma drug discovery suppliers offer compete solutions:

instruments-assays-reagents

• These methods are not yet known in R&D

• No immediate response from big microscope companies (Olympus, Leica,

Zeiss, Nikon) as well as smaller ones (Picoquant, ISS, Becker-Hickl)

• Contract manufacturers not affordable now (Dr. Gary Gust (Source

Scientific), David Hagebush (Lathrop Engineering)

Week 5,

total 59

It’s time to

Realization from previous interviews:

consistent need for software support

Software

Business Model Canvas Week 6

* related to software

• Academic researchers usually build their own optical setups

Software is difficult to develop,

willing to pay for software at ~$5K

(Dr. Lori Goldner)

• Many academic customers can’t/won’t buy capital

equipment from startups, especially over $50K

Willing to pay for software at ~$5K (Dr. Laurent Bentolila,

Dr. Piotr Marszalek)

• Singulex (Our competitor, Single molecule detection platform)

Their main revenue is from providing SERVICES (Steve

Blakely, Director of Marketing at Singulex)

Week 7,

83 total

COGS

Distribution Channels

- Lessons Learned -ALEX

Analyzer(OEMs: GE

Healthcare, Life

Technologies;

Zeiss, Leica,

Nikon, Olympus;

for IVD: Roche

Diagnostics,

Siemens

Healthcare)

Software

Microscope

add-on (ALEX

module)

(McBain

Microscopy)

Reagents/

Consumables/

Assays

(drop-ship

directly from

OEMs)(SigmaAldrich,

AnaSpec,

Qiagen,

Biosearch

Technologies)

Hardware,

Reagents(Thermo

Fisher, VWR,

Sigma)

CO

GS

R&D (20%): $1000

SG&A (20%): $1000

E-Commerce Costs:

Payment Gateway

(3%): $150

AdWords Campaigns

(5%): $250

Discount

(10%):

$500

Profit (42%): $2150

ALEX Software: $5000/download

30-40%of sales

CAC: $3K per customer

1% adoption rate times $30K for reaching out to 1000 customers

Conferences, trade shows, webinars, publications, blogging,3rd party e-mail

User groups; online tech

support

Up-sell(2-color: $5K,3-color: $7.5K,4-color: $10K)

Cross-sell Services($2K/Yr)

LTV: >$15K per customer(after 5 years)

$5K (2c-ALEX) + $2K (reagent)/year x 5 years

Get/Keep/Grow Customer Relationships

related to software

Keep

Viral loop customers publish their

studies and present on conferences

Get Grow

development

releases

Final Business Model Canvas

Revenue Stream

Week 8

94 total

Diagram of Payment Flows

Contract R&D/ Lab

Services

SW License

NTI Academic/Gov

Customer

Sub- Segment

Next Steps

• Continue to explore customer needs for software

and services;

• Continue to upgrade software

• Continue to develop advanced cancer diagnostics

(Evaluate competition; look at other forms of

cancer with microRNA markers, combination of

traditional biomarkers with microRNA to develop

more accurate panels resulting in high clinical

sensitivity AND specificity; show evidence with

clinical studies)

*

• GE Healthcare

Noninvasive serum based lung cancer

screening will be a huge opportunity (Joe

Camaratta).

• USC Center for Advanced Lung Disease

Currently performing a clinical trial detecting

miRNA using microarray (Dr. Alex Balekian)

First Pass Canvas

Low Fidelity MVP

Product/Market Fit

Left-side of the Canvas

Market Opportunity

High Fidelity MVP

Metrics That Matter

Right-side of the Canvas

Problem/Solution validation

Investment Readiness Level

• Continue to explore customer needs for

software and services;

• Continue to upgrade software

• Continue to develop advanced cancer

diagnostics

(Evaluate competition; look at other forms of

cancer with microRNA markers, combination

of traditional biomarkers with microRNA to

develop more accurate panels resulting in

high clinical sensitivity AND specificity; show

evidence with clinical studies)

Research

No-Go(Not ready yet

for Phase II)

IRL2

IRL6

Youtube: http://youtu.be/OrWKGOwCnnY