Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, in collaboration with the SmartHealth Activator, a Midwest healthcare ventures accelerator, is launching the inaugural Biotech Start-up Business Plan Competition this summer. This start-up training and competition — which will be staged virtually — features 19 Chicago teams/ventures in categories that include therapeutics, medical devices, digital health care and healthcare services.

The Biotech Business Plan Competition consists of a four-month training program for Chicagoland startups that pairs industry experts as mentors to each new venture and provides coaching on key startup business skills such as elevator pitch, business-plan creation and development, and final longer pitch with audio-visual materials. The event will culminate in a competition on July 21 in front of a group of industry and venture capital judges, with the top three companies competing for cash prizes. The Lake County chapter of SCORE — a national nonprofit network of volunteer mentors — is also providing assistance in the development, review and critique of the business plan component of the program.

“This program highlights new biomedical innovations that will hopefully benefit patients and healthcare organizations, and builds on our regional startup training activities at our Helix 51 Incubator and the new Innovation and Research Park,” said RFU’s Ron Kaplan, PhD, executive vice president of research. “It also fills an important gap by assisting these early-stage companies with industry mentorship and exposure in our community.”

The final competition on July 21 will consist of three simultaneous tracks in the categories of therapeutics, medical devices and digital healthcare/services. Each team will compete for cash and prizes, with $10,000 to the 1st place winner, $5,000 to the 2nd place winner and $3,000 to the 3rd place winner. A special award of $1,000 will go to the best elevator pitch. In addition, there will be prizes valued at over $1,000 to the four winners consisting of membership services in RFU’s Helix 51 Incubator.