From Bench to Business: Founding a Company

Event description

Presenters: Anthony Hickey, PhD, Jaipal Singh, PhD, Annelyn Torres, PhD, and Erika Tyburski

Join us for an engaging panel discussion featuring founders who have successfully translated academic innovation into real-world impact. This webinar will explore the journey from early-stage research to company formation, offering practical insights into how scientific ideas evolve into viable products and ventures.

Panelists will share their experiences navigating key milestones, including building a company around a novel technology, managing institutional intellectual property and licensing, and advancing products through development and regulatory pathways. Drawing on diverse perspectives, the discussion will highlight both challenges and strategies for moving from the lab to the marketplace.

Participants will gain a clearer understanding of what it takes to launch and grow a science-driven company, along with actionable lessons to support their own commercialization efforts.

The panel will be moderated by Vinit Nijhawan, Managing Director, Mass Ventures, and will include:

  • Anthony Hickey, PhD, Distinguished Fellow, is a senior research pharmacologist at RTI International with more than 30 years of academic and research experience in pulmonary biology, aerosol physics, powder dynamics, pharmacokinetics and drug disposition, formulation design, and device development.
  • Jaipal Singh, PhD is a former Catalyze investigator and the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Vasculonics, a company pioneering the development of therapeutic platform targeting inflammatory and fibrotic disease with their Selective Aryl hydrocarbon Receptor Modulator (SAhRM) chemical series, a first in class disease modifying drug for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and chronic kidney disease (CKD).
  • Annelyn Torres, PhD is a behavioral neuroscientist with expertise in sex differences and endometriosis. She is the co-founder and CEO of Sur180 Therapeutics, a startup focusing on new therapeutic options for endometriosis treatment with a non-hormonal approach for long-term effectiveness.
  • Erika Tyburski is the co-founder and CEO at Sanguina, a digital health company developing digital solutions that transform biological markers into powerful blood health assessment tools. Their new blood health management app, Ruby, provides users with Iron Scores and new Circulation Scores, offering a comprehensive perspective on their wellness.

Webinar presented on May 29, 2026 to an invited audience.

This video is provided for educational purposes only.

This research was, in part, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Agreement OT2 HL157844-01. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the NIH.