PA Biotech Center’s new sponsorship program aims to benefit early-stage companies

Doylestown-based Pennsylvania Biotech Center (PABC) this week announced a sponsorship program intended to support early-stage biotech companies via supplier services, education and collaboration.

This comes seven months after PABC announced a $50 million dollar investment fund and accelerator providing seed and Series A and B funding to its incubator companies.

The program was created by Hatch Biofund Management, LLC, the operators of the life science venture fund. Sponsors in the program will specifically work with early-stage companies in PABC’s incubator and the Unite IQ incubator PABC runs at The Discovery Labs in King of Prussia.

Hatch has identified more than 40 categories of business and drug development services — legal services and pharmaceutical packaging are two examples — in which sponsors can work.

“Since each category of sponsorship is exclusive, instead of competing with each other, these companies will collaborate,” said PABC founder and CEO Tim Block in a statement. “They can share leads, co-develop product offerings, and gain insights into how to enter and serve the pharma industry from the point of inception.”

The first five sponsors on board are:

• Wilson Sonsini, a California-based, national-facing life sciences law firm that focuses on intellectual property; 
• West Pharmaceutical Services, a pharmaceutical packaging company headquartered in Exton;
• Alcami, a drug manufacturer out of South Carolina;
• CitiBank, the commercial investment banking and private wealth group; and
• Zer0 to 5ive, a marketing communications and media relations firm located in Devon.

“We see it as an opportunity to expand our contacts to early-stage biotech companies, help them on their journey, and provide integrated solutions for drug containment and delivery,” said West Pharmaceutical Services VP Graham Reynolds.

Sponsors will also have access to permanent office space next to the The Discovery Labs incubator, where they can more closely interact with the startups in the program, and will be invited to visit companies at the PABC site as well.

“Our hope is to continue to lead the U.S. by being an example for how young biotech firms should be nurtured,” Block said.

A spokesperson said the Hatch Biofund has not yet made any investments, as it is still fundraising.