Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale Presents: "Yale Lifesciences Pitchfest"
Yale Lifesciences Pitchfest is a full day where the top 32 biotech opportunities developing within Yale take the stage to present their 5-minute pitches to industry. Your 5-minute pitch is all that’s required to apply! The 32 presenting investigators will be competing for $4500 in prizes to be awarded at the end of the day, but, more importantly, all advance as semifinalists in the annual Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale competition, which will make nearly $3 million in awards in May 2020.
If you are interested in any kind of partnership with or funding from industry, Pitchfest is your best opportunity to connect with pharmaceutical companies and biotech investors.
Most major pharmaceutical companies and east coast VCs will be represented. Pharmaceutical companies that have already committed to participate as judges include:
- Merck
- Pfizer
- J&J Innovations
- Sanofi
- Lilly
- UCB
Leading Ventures Funds already committed to participate include:
- OrbiMed
- ARCH Venture Partners
- Sofinnova
- RA Capital
- Accelerator Corporation
- F-Prime Capital
- Vida Ventures
Yale Lifesciences Pitchfest is presented by the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale. The Blavatnik Fund helps to accelerate the development of important early-stage discoveries in the life sciences into medical or commercial applications by awarding pilot grants to support exploratory and proof-of-concept activities, as well as larger development grants for more established projects. Over its first three years, the fund has made 21 awards for Yale projects totaling $5 million.