Congratulations to our 2026 Seed-Stage and Emerging Winners
BIO has publicly announced both winning companies together in the August 31 issue of the Bio.News newsletter. Full company profiles featuring interviews with leaders of both start-ups will be published on the Bio.News website soon.
The Seed-Stage winner received:
- Fast-track admission in the Fall 2026 or Fall 2027 cohort of the Science, Inc. virtual accelerator program and/or spotlight position in The Innovation Space’s monthly Spark Factory virtual event. Moreover, the company will also be considered for up to a $200k First Fund investment (residency in The Innovation Space required for First Fund investments).
The Seed-Stage winner and the Emerging Start-Up winner each received:
- Complimentary business development and regulatory consulting tailored to the company’s needs from Pathways Preclinical Partners.
- A complimentary one-year membership for the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, including access to benefits from BIO Business Solutions®, the largest cost-savings purchasing program for the life sciences industry.
- One complimentary registration including BIO Partnering™ access to attend the 2027 BIO International Convention, June 7–10, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Special thanks to this year’s Start-Up Stadium judges:
| Anne Mazet, Chief of Staff - JET FUEL, Xcellerant Ventures |
Kanav Aggarwal, PSM, Founder, Celesticus |
| Brian Ellerman, EdD, MLS, Executive Chair, Desert Angels | Luca Giani, MPP, Senior Principal, Alumni Ventures |
| Carolyn Myers, MBA, PhD, CEO and Principal, FendX Technologies, Inc., and BioEnsemble LLC (and Member, Mid Atlantic Bio Angels) |
Natacha Ralainirina, PhD, Deal Partner, Boardy |
| Dorothée Marie-Louise Döpfer, MPH, Deputy Head of Digital Labs & Program Management Digital Health Accelerator & Community Building, Berlin Institute of Health | Prasad Sunkara, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO, and Investor, Eyegenex, Inc., and NuFund Venture Group |
| Elizabeth Scallon, MBA, Director, Healthcare & Life Science AI Startups, NVIDIA | Rajeev Dadoo, PhD, COO and Managing Partner, SR One |
| Eva Wang PhD, MBA, Venture Partner, MedTech Innovation Hub | Stephanie Marrus, MBA, Founder, Redwood Innovation Advisors |
| Gail Gannon, MSPH, Founder and CEO, Ensante Insights | Will Hoh, MS, Managing Director, Mergers and Acquisitions/Credit and Royalty Finance, H.C. Wainwright & Co. |
| Haley Ha , Analyst, Xcellerant Ventures | William Provine, PhD, Founder, President, and CEO, The Innovation Space* |
| Jae Sly, MBA, PhD, Chairman and CEO, Pathways Preclinical Partners, Inc.* |
About 2026 Start-Up Stadium
Start-Up Stadium is designed to provide start-up and emerging biotechnology and life science companies — with fewer than 20 employees and that have raised less than $10 million since inception — a unique platform to engage directly with the global investment community. Read the FAQs below for more information.
This high-visibility opportunity helps startups gain valuable exposure, receive expert feedback, and connect with key stakeholders across the biotech ecosystem.
Two prizes have been awarded for BIO 2026: One Seed Stage Start-Up Prize Winner; and one Emerging Start-Up Prize Winner. Don’t miss your chance to take the field and share your innovation on a global stage.
Sponsored by:
Supporters:
2026 Start Up Stadium
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Start-Up Stadium 5B
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Diamante is a female-led biotechnology company pioneering plant derived, immune tolerance-inducing therapies for autoimmune diseases. Its proprietary platform is designed to reset the immune system wi ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Immunology
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We’re developing first-in-class oral therapeutics for food allergy, based on forward genetic discoveries that identify disease-driving targets in vivo.Start-Up Stadium Session- Immunology
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Paldara Pharmaceuticals is a biotechnology company developing advanced bacteriophage-based therapeutics and synergistic drug delivery technologies. Its platform localizes and controls bacteriophage de ...Start-Up Stadium Session-
Infectious Disease and Vaccines
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Founded in July 2020, Vacino Biotech is committed to the development of novel nucleic acid drugs and universal vaccines. With the self-developed next-generation vaccine design SED technology, we have ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Platform for Therapeutics
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Mangrove Therapeutics is developing first-in-class therapies targeting a novel RNA-mediated master regulator of inflammation, addressing a key gap in polygenic disease biology. While over 95% of patie ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Inflammation
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Start-Up Stadium 5BWe're sorry, but we couldn't find any results that match your search criteria. Please try again with different keywords or filters.Loading
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Chiromesh Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing innovative solutions for localized, sustained drug delivery in solid tumors. The company’s lead platform, μMESH, is a conformable, micro-st ...Start-Up Stadium Session-
Oncology
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Palo Alto Immunotherapeutics (PAI) is developing advanced immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. Cancer vaccines have centered around identifying mutant proteins as the target with little regard ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Oncology
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Montani Bio is a WV-based vaccines and therapeutics company focused on the expansion of the mRNA platform into new areas of disease. The company spun out of the Vaccine Development Center at West Virg ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Oncology
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Sift is a preclinical-stage biotechnology company using AI and high-throughput T-cell screening to develop peptide immunotherapies for cancer and autoimmune disease. Founded in 2024 as a UC Berkeley s ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Oncology
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TippingPoint Biosciences is building the first scalable platform to model disease-specific epigenetic states and systematically discover small molecules that selectively kill cells driven by inappropr ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Oncology
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Ypsilon Therapeutics is expanding the reach of antibody therapeutics. Ypsilon is advancing a new class of cancer therapies with TCR mimics (TCRm), designed to address unmet needs in solid tumors. TCRm ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Oncology
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Apmonia Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing first-in-class peptide therapeutics targeting extracellular matrix signaling and the tumor microenvironment. Our lead program, ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Oncology
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CNCure Co., Ltd. is a South Korea–based biotechnology company headquartered in Hwasun-gun, Jeonnam, focusing on cancer theranostics that combine therapy and diagnostics for precision medicine. The com ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Oncology
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Start-Up Stadium 5BWe're sorry, but we couldn't find any results that match your search criteria. Please try again with different keywords or filters.Loading
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Voro Therapeutics is a privately held biotechnology company based in San Diego, spun out of Alloy Therapeutics’ 82VS Venture Studio. The company’s PrimeBody platform is a best-in-class conditionally-a ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Oncology
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Infixion Bioscience is developing first in class, FDA bound treatments for Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1), a genetic disease affecting 125,000 people in the U.S. and 2.5M worldwide. Founded by NF1 par ...Start-Up Stadium Session-
Orphan and Rare Disease
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AddGraft has reimagined autologous cell therapy by transforming engineered skin cells into living biofactories for durable protein production, enabling local or systemic activity across a variety of i ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Regenerative Medicine
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Sarcomatrix is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to redefining the treatment of muscle-wasting diseases through the power of regenerative medicine. Our mission is to develop first-i ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Regenerative Medicine
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Wink Biotherapeutics is developing novel, RNA-based therapeutics that allow for a functional cure for diabetes. We are the only company in the world that allows for targeted pancreatic beta cell regen ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Regenerative Medicine
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PAX Therapeutics, having completed IND-enabling studies, is on the cusp of clinical trials to demonstrate optimized tendon healing by the delivery of our growth factor vector which in preclinical stud ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Regenerative Medicine
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Coastar Therapeutics is a venture-backed biotech firm headquartered in San Diego, CA, dedicated to advancing next-generation gene delivery technology. The company has developed a novel eLNP technology ...Start-Up Stadium Session-
Cell and Gene Therapy and Genome Editing
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153 Therapeutics is a UCSF spinout developing a novel small-molecule therapy for Parkinson’s Disease. The approach targets Nurr1, a nuclear receptor that plays a central role in restoring dopamine pro ...Start-Up Stadium Session-
Brain Health
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BrainStorm Therapeutics is a precision neuroscience company developing disease-modifying therapies for rare and neurodegenerative brain disorders. We integrate patient-derived brain organoids with AI ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Brain Health
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Sculpta, Inc. is a San Francisco based startup founded by physician scientist and former Stanford faculty member Neal Amin. Sculpta is pioneering Protein Sculpting therapeutics, splice-switching antis ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Brain Health
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Zena Therapeutics is developing safer alternatives to benzodiazepines by leveraging a novel GABA-A receptor binding site. Our partial positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) deliver anxiolytic and anti- ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Brain Health
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Start-Up Stadium 5BWe're sorry, but we couldn't find any results that match your search criteria. Please try again with different keywords or filters.Loading
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At O11 biomedical, we will improve the lives of millions of patients suffering from the progressive lung disease COPD: We allow breathing via the gut! Our first in-class oral drug, RESPILIQ, binds CO2 ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Respiratory
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Automated microbial evolutionStart-Up Stadium Session- Platform for Therapeutics
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Airobes is a carbon-to-value biotechnology company that developed a two-organism process that utilizes carbon dioxide as the carbon feedstock for bacterial fermentation. Through this process, Airobes ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Platform for Therapeutics
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Silver Spur Therapeutics is a preclinical-stage therapeutics company spun out from the Chung Lab at the University of Southern California, focused on developing renal-targeted RNA therapies for Autoso ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Platform for Therapeutics
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Crafton Biotechnology is a privately held mRNA therapeutics company developing next-generation vaccines and treatments powered by its proprietary PureCap® and CRAFT™ platforms. PureCap® enables GMP pr ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Platform for Therapeutics
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Aleutian Therapeutics is a pre-clinical stage company developing universal stem cells to enable scalable production of a variety of cell therapies. Our proprietary technology aims to restore cellular ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Platform for Therapeutics
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Sandia Biotech, Inc. is a biotechnology company located in Albuquerque, New Mexico that provides unique, proprietary antibody and protein-based fluorescent reagents to biomedical research scientists w ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Platform for Therapeutics
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Start-Up Stadium 5BWe're sorry, but we couldn't find any results that match your search criteria. Please try again with different keywords or filters.Loading
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We are a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new pain medication as powerful as opioids but without the risk of dependence.Start-Up Stadium Session- Pain Management
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Ursa Science builds a portable, bench-scale modular wet lab platform with an AI agent layer that adopts commercial off-the-shelf lab instruments as native modules within a unified, AI-orchestrated sys ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Tools/Drug Development Support Tech
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Weka Biosciences is a Santa Fe, NM-based enzyme innovation company developing novel polysaccharide polymers with applications spanning chromatography and therapeutics. Our platform produces a non-sulf ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Tools/Drug Development Support Tech
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Sostos has developed a unique software technology that can identify personalized cancer treatment solutions for patients. Our Artificial Intelligence (AI) system is called CATOS - Cancer Treatment Opt ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Tools/Drug Development Support Tech
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Bullseye has built a fully automated engine to create medicines that unlock targets and diseases the biopharma industry has written off as impossible and “undruggable.” By harnessing biology’s most pr ...Start-Up Stadium Session- Tools/Drug Development Support Tech
Investment Resources
Winning Investor Interest: A Fundraising Masterclass for Biotech Leaders
Presented by Locust Walk
Presented by Falk Ehmann, MD, PhD, Head of Innovation and Development Accelerator - European Medicines Agency (EMA)
Need Advice on Your Pitch Deck?
Download our pitch presentation guide for additional insight and advice on building a stellar submission.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there any cost to apply for Start-Up Stadium?
There is no cost to apply for Start-Up Stadium. Please note that applying for Start-Up Stadium does not guarantee participation in the event. BIO will notify all Start-Up Stadium submitters of the status of their application in late-March/early-April 2026.
What do prize winners receive?
- A complimentary one-year membership for the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, including access to benefits from BIO Business Solutions®, the largest cost-savings purchasing program for the life sciences industry and discounted registration to other BIO events.
- One complimentary Premier Access registration (includes BIO Partnering™) for the 2027 BIO International Convention.
Who can I contact for more information?
Please email program@bio.org if you have any additional questions about applying for the 2026 BIO Start-Up Stadium.
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