New Orleans Startup Wins Pitch Competition in Boston

The Pistoia Alliance is a global alliance working to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D. The alliance hosts an annual pitch competition, the President’s Startup Challenge, a Shark Tank style pitch that took place in Boston.

New Orleans-based Pine Biotech was one of the grand prize winners following the Challenge. Along with the other winner, Medexprim, Pine took home a $15,000 award, a six months one-to-one mentorship from a Pistoia Alliance member, in addition to six months access to Clarivate Analytics’ life science content assets.

“Both Pine Biotech and Medexprim pitched cutting-edge solutions that meet the core aim of the Pistoia Alliance – to lower the barriers which hamper innovation in life sciences R&D,” commented Dr Steve Arlington, President of the Pistoia Alliance.

Pine Biotech, based in the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, offers a software platform for commercial research scientists and biomedical researchers who need to manage large volumes of data. The company hopes to simplify bioinformatics for drug discovery and research.

“We simplify bioinformatics and enable discovery of molecular diagnostics, small molecules, vaccines, and other therapeutics through our powerful multi-omics analysis platform, T-BioInfo,” shares the website. “Our goal is to bring the exciting new capabilities of big omics data analysis and integration into the hands of biomedical researchers through a simple and intuitive interface, innovative algorithms, integration, and visualization.”