Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Program celebrates 10th anniversary with annual pitch night

Once a year, members of the biotech community gather on campus to attend a pitch night for the Sarafan ChEM-H Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Program (UEP), a program that teaches undergraduates some of the ins and outs of launching a biotech company. Teams of undergraduates present their ideas for new therapeutic innovations to a mock panel of potential investors, consisting of current and former biotech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, industry professionals, and Stanford faculty. Winners of the pitch night receive $50,000 to bring their biotech idea to life, using the advanced scientific instrumentation and expertise at the Nucleus at Sarafan ChEM-H. 

This year, the UEP celebrated a special milestone, its 10th anniversary. Many of the coaches and judges have continued to participate in the program, year after year.  Andrew Hinman, associate director of medicinal chemistry at the Nucleus, has served as a UEP mentor for four years, helping students to craft and hone their ideas during the fall quarter leading up to pitch night.

“My favorite part of mentoring for the UEP is helping students change gears from acing midterms to pitching investment ideas.  It’s a different language, but still science,” said Hinman. “They pour out so much passion into these projects, and it’s tremendously gratifying to see them make a credible impression in front of real venture capitalists.”   

Learning storytelling and teamwork

Many of the participants in the UEP program seem to share that sentiment, speaking about their growth not only as scientists, but also as communicators and team members.

“My biggest take-away from the UEP is that science only becomes valuable with communication, and there is so much more to telling a scientific narrative than the numbers or the exact design of a molecule—it’s about a story you’re telling,” said chemical engineering major and UEP participant Keira Chatwin, ‘27.

Chatwin’s UEP teammate, biology major Jessie Ong, ‘27, agreed, saying that one of the most valuable parts of her UEP experience was learning how to work on a scientific team.

“I always thought that being a good scientist meant knowing your cell assays or journal content. But there’s so much more to being a good scientist: To know how to lift up other members of your team, to know how to accept criticism, and to know how to grow from it is something I really value,” Ong said. “These are life skills that I am going to use for the rest of my career.”

Developing a new strategy to tackle antibiotic resistance

Four teams competed in this year’s UEP pitch night. Their research topics spanned from designing a precision medicine for an esophageal inflammatory disease to creating strategies for targeting challenging pancreatic and breast cancers.

This year, the giant $50,000 check was presented to Disruptiva Therapeutics, a team focused on developing a new antibiotic strategy to target gram-negative bacteria and combat antibiotic resistance. The winning team included Michael Balagula (biochemistry, ‘27), Karen Glenn (biochemistry, ‘28), Max Scherer (chemistry, ‘27), and Emma Shultz (economics and mathematics, ‘28).

“I'm an aspiring researcher, and I want my work to have meaning, to actually make an impact,” said Balagula. “The UEP gives students a chance to take on real problems as undergraduates and to contribute directly through ideas and hands-on research. That combination of independence and collaboration really drew me in.”

Mark Smith, director of medicinal chemistry at the Nucleus and Innovative Medicines Accelerator, has been leading the UEP since it began a decade ago. At the end of the night, he encouraged the students to think back on how far they had come since they first started working on their pitches and to take pride in their accomplishments.

“The judges said that these were some of the highest caliber presentations they’ve seen in the history of the program,” said Smith. “So, congratulations!”