Editor’s note: Hemocellular Technologies is one of 23 companies preparing for presentations at Venture 2003, the Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s 20th annual venture capital event.

As it did a year ago, Local Tech Wire is featuring in-depth profiles of presenting firms built around a Q&A with a company executive as well as a Fact Box of important information. One profile will appear each day.

LTW put together a Q&A designed to not only produce facts about the presenters but also to give each a chance to state the case for venture capitalists to invest.

Second in the series is from Stan Eskridge, president of Hemocellular.

Venture 2003 is set for April 22-23 in Chapel Hill.

Times are tough. If you had only one chance and one paragraph to convince an investor, how would you answer this question: “Why should an investor choose your company?”

To have a good chance to earn an excellent return, and to save lives.

Hemocellular Therapeutics, with a ‘first in market’ hemostatic product poised to immediately enter clinical development, stemming from millions of dollars of already completed pre-IND (investigational new drug) research under DoD investment, is one of the unique A round investment opportunities providing the three important investment criteria:

  • A known product with large animal proof of concept trials already paid for
  • An identified development timeline to reach a validated commercial market
  • Well identified milestones delivering excellent value creation within the first round, or within 24 months of operations.

What is the “pain point” (or points) you address for your customers?

Their patients are needlessly suffering and bleeding to death.

What makes your company unique? Do you have a proprietary and/or a patented technology? Please explain why it is unique and what the status is of any patent filings.

The technology licensed from UNC-Chapel Hill and East Carolina University is patented, well-fenced, and has been exclusively licensed to Hemocellular for commercialization. It is the latest in a long history of “discoveries” coming from the world-renown research institution for hematology at UNC-CH, the Francis Owen Blood Research Laboratory.

What makes your product(s) and/or services unique vs. your competition? (Who is your competition, and what do they offer?) If you have no competition, why not?

Hemocellular’s initial product, lyophilized (freeze-dried), sterile and immediately hemostatic blood platelets, solve the problems with the current standard of care, liquid-stored platelets from blood banks, that lead to many thousands of deaths in the U.S. each year. There is no other immediately effective coagulation therapeutic for physicians to turn to, and there is no competition reported in the peer literature that has achieved proof-of-concept in animal trials.

Does your company already generate revenue?

No revenue.

What is your target market? What is the size of that market in terms of dollars? What share of that market do you believe you can win?

The initial target is the acute-care market. In 2002, it represented about $1 billion in expenditures related to the current standard of care that is ineffective in controlling active bleeding. Morgan Stanley forecasts that the market in the U.S. will be about $2 billion in 2008 when Hemocellular initiates deliveries of its lyophilized platelets. The worldwide market is quantified at approximately two times that of the U.S. Since Hemocellular’s will be the only hemostatic agent, market share will grow rapidly, approaching 30 percent within five years.

What will you do with the invested funds? What is the timeline for product delivery? If you have existing products and services, how will additional funding help you expand your company, if that is the intention, or will you develop new products?

Funds invested in the current round will be used to complete process science engineering designs, pre-clinical work, an IND, and Phase I clinical trials — all of which will be completed in 18 to 24 months from funding. Products deliveries, after Phases II & III and a BLA (biologics license application), are forecast to begin within 48 months thereafter.

What do you want from an investor other than money?

Contacts. Credibility. Support (and an occasional pat on the back wouldn’t be all bad, either).

Why will investors be impressed with your management team?

This team has “been there, done it” — we’ve got the industry specific expertise and the business development track records to make this happen.

What is the exit strategy for the investor from your company? Are there potential strategic alliances with larger companies? Do you wish to take the company public? Or do you wish to grow the company and either sell it or acquire other companies?

Exits will be provided through M&A opportunities, strategic licensing, and/or the proverbialstarting with the completion of Phase I. Management’s intention is to make this a successful business in order to (1) save lives and (2) produce a good return for our investors.

Fact Box: www.localtechwire.com/article.cfm?u=3775