What is the story behind GekkoVet?

During my vet studies back in the 90s, I was exhausted by the amount of information and knowledge we as veterinarians had to memorize to pass exams and diagnose patients at the University Hospital.

What was the motivation behind your business idea?

I merged my first biotech company back in 2007. After the merger, I was given a responsibility to look at what were my opportunities from then on. It allowed me to look at the animal health market. I was engaged with someone who was an expert in the field, and I began to appreciate the fact that a lot of the newer immunotherapies that had been developed in the human health space were not having any impact on the animal health space.

Can you tell us more about you and the idea behind QSM Diagnostics?

I consider myself a chemical engineer and my PhD is in bioengineering. The research and interests that I have, have been at that interface. As a postdoc, I lived in the Netherlands for a few years, and then I looked for faculty positions in 2010. That's when I got interested in the specific research that ended up turning into QSM diagnostics.

 Can you tell me about your background and how the company started?

I’ve been working in the animal health pharmaceuticals arena for over 20 years. I worked on the marketing side of things with many large multinationals and worked with companion animals and food as well.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that even though a lot of companies talked about loving cats and dogs, it looked like the dog products were getting a lot more attention. That started me thinking about why cats were not getting the same level of it.

Can you tell us about yourself and the story behind Torigen?

My name is Ashley Kalinauskas I’m the founder and CEO, and the idea for Torigen came from my graduate research at the University of Notre Dame. The professor that I worked alongside had developed a way of creating personalized cancer vaccines utilizing a portion of the patient’s surgically resected tumor.

tumors become the antigen backbone for the creation of an autologous cancer vaccine

What was the motivation behind your business idea?

Rejuvenate Bio’s technology originated in the lab of co-founder George Church, Ph.D., as part of our co-founder Noah Davidsohn’s postdoctoral research into the genetics of aging. We hypothesized that providing combinations of three longevity-associated genes (FGF21, sTGFβR2, and αKlotho) via gene therapy would combat age-related diseases and confer health benefits.