“RI Tech and Innovation Report” - Medley Genomics Wins Top Prize at #GetStartedRI Pitch Competition

“RI Tech and Innovation Report” - Medley Genomics Wins Top Prize at #GetStartedRI Pitch Competition

It’s amazing what can happen in just three short years.

In 2016, Patrice Milos, a biotechnology expert, left the corporate world—she previously had leadership positions at Pfizer Global Research and Development and Claritas Genomics—to found Medley Genomics.

The startup is looking to change the way medical professionals address patient-specific cancer treatment plans. Medley’s software platform integrates gene mutation from sequencing of patient tumors with its novel algorithms and data analytics to address the challenges genomic heterogeneity—targeting resistance to treatment drugs due to gene mutations that differ with each patient.

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When Milos and Ben Rapheal—a professor of computer science at Princeton University—founded the company, they received $250k in early seed funding from Slater Technology Fund and last fall won the top $50k prize at the #GetStartedRI pitch competition.

“GetStartedRI is a truly preeminent start-up pitch competition, and it was truly an honor to win,” Milos told GoLocalProv. “Most important was the recognition…having people from across the state hear your story and believe my conviction that we can do better for cancer patients was so reassuring.”

With Medley’s product now in beta testing, GoLocalProv caught up Milos to get her take on being a female tech industry leader in Rhode Island.

GoLocalProv: What inspired you to transition from the corporate world and lead a startup effort?

Milos: The time had come to be part of growing a new ecosystem—all the signs of new vigor in the innovation community were emerging and so in 2016, I finally came home!

GoLocalProv: How have you found the RI business community in terms of support for a small startup?

Milos: Having lived in Rhode Island for many years, yet never having worked (here), it has been a great opportunity to create my own business as well as shape the ecosystem in the life sciences. We recognized the strong foundation laid out for development of our industry—world-class academic institutions and major medical centers…access to talent…and growing recognition of all life sciences stakeholders of the need to build collaborations across the ecosystem as well as grow and support entrepreneurs and new businesses.

GoLocalProv: How about support for a startup with a female at the helm?

Milos: That of course is an interesting (question). Perhaps the biggest challenge has been raising venture capital. We were fortunate to receive (the) early seed money from Slater Technology Fund—great early seed stage investors right here in our own Rhode Island community. But the data is striking. Female CEO’s received about 2.5 percent of all venture investment in 2018. Something just doesn’t seem right here. In general, obtaining venture funding is really hard. So many great ideas and so many tough decisions, but somehow we need to tip the scales some more.

GoLocalProv: What is Medley focusing on right now?

Milos: As a company, we are focused on the customer, meeting with many pharma and biotech companies to align our stage of raising business awareness with our technical expertise, to execute potential partnerships as a key sign to the investment community. We are also licensing individual data algorithms to address specific needs for our customers.