Now beginning its ninth year, the California Life Sciences FAST Advisory Program has extended its reach this fall serving five young companies from the Los Angeles/Orange County and San Diego regions. While startups from southern California have participated in FAST over the years, this is the first year that the entire cohort is predominantly SoCal-based, a response to increasing calls from partners from these regions to extend the renowned commercialization program and its advisory network to local life science startups. California Life Sciences worked through partners such as the San Diego Entrepreneurship Exchange, MedTechColor and others in our network to get the word out to regional startups.

The fall program will also bring in experts from Southern California who will join Bay Area life science veterans in advisory teams to work with startups over a twelve-week period, extending FAST’s resource-rich community across the state and generating excitement among those seeking to expand their influence and networks statewide.

Meet the Fall FAST 2021 companies:

  • Disati Medical| Disati Medical is developing monitoring technology that quantifies breathing effort to promote early detection of respiratory failure and aid clinicians in management decisions for patients battling acute respiratory illnesses. (non-CA based, MedTechColor winner)
  • JUAD NGNE| JUAD NGNE, a California Limited Liability Company, is pioneering the next generation of neuroendovascular theranostic devices for applications in neurologic disorders and disease to address clinical unmet needs where the harm-to-benefit ratio of invasive diagnostics and therapeutics impacts the threshold to clinically indicated and timely treatment.  This results in delays to definitive therapy, adversely impacting long-term outcomes. (Los Angeles, CLS MedTechColor Company)
  • NanoPharma Solutions| Nano PharmaSolutions’ vision is to make good drugs great by improving the bioavailability using their proprietary NanoTransformer technology. (San Diego)
  • OncoXome| OncoXome is an oncology startup whose objective is to bring to patients with advanced cancer an innovative multitarget therapeutic approach, hacking cell communication and using gene editing to overcome cancer resistance. (Los Angeles)
  • Parallel Bio| Accelerating the development of curative immunotherapies. (Los Angeles)
  • V-Flow Medical| V-Flow Medical’s mission is to provide clinicians with appropriate tools to diagnose and appropriately treat pelvic vein compressions, restoring optimal blood flow to the heart. (Orange County)

The Fall Program will kick off in early September with the FAST Opening Showcase and culminate in a December Closing Showcase in which FAST companies will present to a distinguished audience of potential investors and collaboration partners. Once again, California FAST companies will be joined at the Showcase by emerging companies from CLS’s FAST International programs with Canada (Canadian Technology Accelerator) and Japan (Kansai).

Of the 16 companies FAST and FAST International are serving this fall:

  • 7 are led by women in the C-Suite
  • 2 are led by BIPOC founders

The FAST International: Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) companies are:

The FAST International: Japan (Kansai) companies are:

To date, 84 FAST graduates have raised $1.9B, including 31 Series A investments, and have created over 500 new jobs. Twenty have entered into strategic partnerships, five have been acquired, and two have gone public. Over 400 volunteer advisors have lent their expertise to the FAST companies. Eighty students have served as project leaders for the program, gaining a front-row seat to what it takes to build a successful life science company. For more information on the FAST Program, contact Julie Harness at JHarness@CaLifeSciences.org.