Koniku LTD UK, a startup focused on improving clinical trial success rates in the pharmaceutical industry, took home the top prizes at the MIT Global Startup Workshop held this year in Guatemala City and hosted by Universidad Francesco Marroquin (UFM), Guatemala.
Koniku’s team represented the global nature of the program with members from UCLA Anderson (Christina Salys, EMBA 2016 and Chris McAndrew, EMBA 2016), University of Cambridge (Laura Brightmann and Mark Brown) and Imperial College London (Oshiorenoya Agabi, PhD 2015 Department of Bioengineering Under the supervision of Simon Schultz). The scientific advisor to the company is neuroscientist Vincenzo De Paola (Imperial College London) along with business advisors Prof. George Abe (UCLA) and Christopher Hedvall (Chalmers University Gothenburg).
With clinical trials failing over 85% of the time the Koniku team has developed a system, based on Agabi’s PhD research, that allows drug developers to replicate human organ-drug interactions using “lab on a chip” technology. The team won prizes including the top award of $10,000 in the Business Plan Competition, guaranteeing them placement in the second round of the prestigious MASSChallenge (http://masschallenge.org/). In addition they took home the top award of $2,000 in the Elevator Pitch Competition. “We were honored by the awards,” Stated Agabi “and it was truly a team effort from a remarkable group of talented people in putting this all together.”
The Business Plan Competition was open to early stage startup companies from around the world. Organizers announced they received over 120 applicants in the first round and 8 finalists were selected to present their plans to a panel of judges in Guatemala. Finalists were given five minutes to present their plans followed by a 3 minute Q&A session with the judging panel.
Business Plan Competition Awards Included:
Grand Prize ($10,000) – Koniku
Chapin Prize ($1,000) – Contabitulus