CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pfizer Inc. and LabCentral announced that Pfizer has selected Neutrolis and Mediar Therapeutics are the winners of this year’s Pfizer Golden Ticket Program. LabCentral is a first-of-its-kind shared laboratory space designed as a launchpad for high-potential life-sciences and biotech startups located in the heart of Cambridge, MA and proximate to Pfizer’s Kendall Square site. Each Golden Ticket will provide these startups with waitlist priority and a voucher for one year of prepaid rent for a reserved bench space for one scientist, including certain benefits of shared infrastructure and services.
“Neutrolis and Mediar Therapeutics are both pursuing innovative science and employing creative approaches to help address complex and unmet medical needs,” said Morris Birnbaum, MD, PhD, Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), Internal Medicine Research Unit, Pfizer, Inc. “We are proud to sponsor a Golden Ticket program and to support local entrepreneurial innovation that we hope will help catalyze groundbreaking science.”
The winners were announced last night during an event at Pfizer’s Kendall Square site that featured a panel discussion on “approaching collaboration from a ‘developability’ mindset” and brief presentations from Neutrolis and Mediar Therapeutics. The event convened Pfizer colleagues and collaborators, current LabCentral residents and alumni, emerging startups, and other stakeholders to stimulate conversations on local collaborations and networking within the Boston/Cambridge biomedical ecosystem.
“We are excited to see how both of these companies will leverage their Golden Tickets to expand their LabCentral footprint to advance their programs,” added LabCentral Cofounder and President Johannes Fruehauf, M.D., Ph.D. “This award is just one example of how Pfizer is helping to advance great science and support our growing biotech ecosystem.”
As a LabCentral platinum sponsor, Pfizer can select up to two qualifying startup companies each year to take up residence in LabCentral’s Kendall Square facility through use of the Golden Tickets. Pfizer’s Golden Ticket Program assists high-potential and innovative early-stage life science and biotech companies. “This year, we evaluated many eligible U.S. companies,” commented Eileen Elliott, Pfizer’s Kendall Square Site Lead and Head, Site Affairs and External Partnership. “Neutrolis and Mediar Therapeutics rose to the top of the field for their innovative approaches and clear research visions.”
Neutrolis’ lead candidate, NTR-441, is a first-in-class therapeutic slated to enter the clinic in early 2021 for lupus and other serious autoimmune diseases, while Mediar Therapeutics is focused on the discovery and development of novel, first-in-class anti-fibrotic therapies for patients.
"We are thrilled to be receiving a Golden Ticket from Pfizer, a resource that will help foster our research progression," said Meredith Fisher, Interim Chief Executive Officer of Mediar Therapeutics. "Having this support so early in our journey is remarkable and will be a key enabler to our mission.”
“We are appreciative of the Golden Ticket, and we look forward to using the resources the ticket provides as we advance NTR-441 into the clinic,” added Abdul Hakkim R., PhD., Co-founder and CEO of Neutrolis.
This is Pfizer’s second year awarding LabCentral Golden Tickets. Mediar Therapeutics and Neutrolis join Tevard Biosciences and QurAlis, who were awarded the Company’s 2018 Golden Tickets.
Golden Ticket winners and their use and receipt of a Golden Ticket are subject to all terms and conditions of the Golden Ticket Program. A listing of winners (including city of residence, date of receipt of the prize, and approximate value of the Golden Ticket) can be obtained by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to the following address on or after November 15, 2019: Pfizer Inc., Attention: Site Affairs, 1 Portland St., Cambridge, MA 02139.
About Pfizer: Breakthroughs That Change Patients’ Lives
At Pfizer, we apply science and our global resources to bring therapies to people that extend and significantly improve their lives. We strive to set the standard for quality, safety and value in the discovery, development and manufacture of health care products, including innovative medicines and vaccines. Every day, Pfizer colleagues work across developed and emerging markets to advance wellness, prevention, treatments and cures that challenge the most feared diseases of our time. Consistent with our responsibility as one of the world's premier innovative biopharmaceutical companies, we collaborate with health care providers, governments and local communities to support and expand access to reliable, affordable health care around the world. For more than 150 years, we have worked to make a difference for all who rely on us. We routinely post information that may be important to investors on our website at www.Pfizer.com. In addition, to learn more, please visit us on www.Pfizer.com and follow us on Twitter at @Pfizer and @Pfizer News, LinkedIn, YouTube and like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Pfizer.
About LabCentral (www.labcentral.org; twitter @labcentral)
A private, non-profit institution, LabCentral was founded in 2013 as a launchpad for high-potential life sciences and biotech start-ups. Operating a total of 100,000 square-feet in the heart of Kendall Square in Cambridge, Mass., LabCentral offers fully permitted laboratory and office space for as many as 70 start-ups comprising approximately 500 scientists and entrepreneurs. More information is available at www.labcentral.org.
