FAST

The FAST Program provides qualifying CLS early-stage member companies with intensive team review and coaching to perfect their business model and product development plans, and to build a compelling commercialization strategy. The FAST advisor network comprised of over 425 experienced entrepreneurs, product and business experts (including clinical development, regulatory, reimbursement and business development specialists) advise the selected companies during a ten-to-twelve week program, culminating in a final FAST Showcase to a curated audience of potential investors and strategic partners.

For non-U.S.-based clusters seeking to grow their regional economies, FAST International helps life science researchers and early-stage companies gain commercial footholds in U.S. markets and connects them to the resources required to develop subsidiaries or commercial spin-offs in the United States.

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Together with Johnson & Johnson Innovation, AbbVie and 5AM Ventures, the CLS Inspire QuickFire Challenge for Diverse Innovators, offers an opportunity for California-based innovators who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Pacific Islander to receive up to $150,000 in grant funding and business advising through the FAST program to advance their science.

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CLS is a vital part of CARB-X’s network of accelerators and provides business and technical support to funded projects throughout the world. As the largest public-private partnerships dedicated to accelerating antibacterial innovation, CARB-X supports research projects around the world and has invested $500 million, to date, in the development of antibiotics and other life-saving therapeutics of all types, diagnostics, vaccines and other preventatives and devices.

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CLS routinely hosts intimate, by-invitation-only dinners designed to foster networking and peer-to-peer exchanges on key industry issues for women executives from established and emerging companies and investment firms. Held in selective Bay Area restaurants, these dinners offer a casual environment to form valuable connections and is an integral part of our mission to advance diversity, collaboration and innovation.

Leveraging our 25+ years of relationships in California, including deep knowledge of “under the radar” startups and a compelling pipeline of companies, we create opportunities for therapeutic, device, and diagnostic companies in California to gain unparalleled access to novel technologies for co-development, many of which are FAST program graduates.