RALEIGH, N.C. and ATLANTA, Ga. – If you’re helping to start a North Carolina life science company, you should get your app together by Friday, June 20.

That’s the deadline for applications to pitch your company story to investors and colleagues at the 16th annual Southeast BIO Investor & Partnering Forum.

The actual Forum will be held Nov. 11-13 at the W Hotel Midtown Atlanta.

If you’re not sure if it’s worth the hassle, Tony Voiers, CEO of Raleigh’s Novocor Medical Systems, is living proof it’s worthwhile. He went to last year’s event in Richmond, Va., and came home the winner of the EARLY/Stage Shootout.

NCBiotech loan helped fund ‘cool’ 2013 winner

Novocor, founded with technology developed at North Carolina State University, is using $67,500 in North Carolina Biotechnology Center loan funding plus outside equity investment to develop a really cool patented medical device called HypoCore.

HypoCore is also a really cooling medical device, targeting the emergency medicine market. It’s a system that enables first responders to quickly chill patients by putting cold saline solution into their veins – a process called therapeutic hypothermia. By lowering body temperature, caregivers can reduce cell damage after traumatic injuries such as cardiac arrest, stroke, brain injury, heat stroke and spinal cord injury.

Voiers says NCBiotech help comes in valuable ways beyond the loan money that often can’t be raised elsewhere by early-stage life science companies.

“We also closed our series A round at $1.3 million,” he noted, quickly adding, “I met several of the investors as a result of introductions by the NCBiotech staff.”

A panel of judges representing four venture funds was so impressed with Novocor’s technology that it chose the company as last year’s shootout winner.

EARLY/Stage just one of the events

Companies in that EARLY/Stage event are seeking early rounds of investment. They participate in an individual private advisory session led by early-stage investors, entrepreneurs and experienced life science managers and service providers. Then the judges pick several finalists to present to the full conference audience. From them, the overall winner is announced at the closing lunch.

The Southeast BIO event, co-sponsored by NCBiotech, provides a showcase for some of the most promising bioscience and medical technology companies in the seven-state region, which also includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

The event gives executives of young companies picked by a selection committee of regional and national venture capitalists a chance to collect advice and investment.
Competitions include MAIN/Stage, BIO/Plan

One group of participants, dubbed MAIN/Stage presenting companies, have generally completed at least one round of institutional financing. They each make a 10-minute pitch to the full conference audience.

There is also a BIO/Plan competition in which presenters outline their business opportunities to the audience and to a panel of celebrity judges.

More information is available from Suzanne Cantando at 919-272-4391.