Westchester County Biosciences Accelerator (WCBA) Announces 2025 Cohort of Life Sciences Startups

The Westchester County Biosciences Accelerator (WCBA) recently announced the sixth cohort of emerging biosciences ventures invited to participate in the annual program. Twelve ventures will participate in the 6.5 months-long program that provides the founders with a business education to develop a fundable business plan along with a professional bioscience network. All startups receive an entrepreneur coach, access to active bioscience business professionals and preparation to pitch to investors.

The selected startups were chosen following an extensive screening process. Expert scientists, active investors and business strategists rated the ventures based on criteria including investment interest, business networking interest and fit for the program resources.

Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said: “Westchester County is home to a dynamic life sciences community that ranges from enterprising startups to internationally-known researchers and innovators. We are proud to offer a competitive entry accelerator program to life sciences entrepreneurs and look forward to witnessing the evolution of these startups.”

Westchester County Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Deborah Novick said: “From medtech devices to innovative apps and groundbreaking clinical research ventures, we are immensely proud of the startups that have come through the WCBA program. We look forward to introducing the newest cohort to the education, mentorship and networks that make the Westchester life sciences community a great place to launch and scale.”

The 2025 WCBA cohort participants and ventures include:

• Atsuo Ochi (Independent) – CytoPropago’s technology activates a novel self-rejuvenation program in body cells, quickly reprogramming them into stem cells to reverse aging and support regenerative therapies.
• Dov Biran (Independent) - MDinsight is a cutting-edge precision medicine AI-Driven Platform, designed to empower physicians in making optimized, data-driven clinical decisions and enhancing the overall quality of patient care.
• Eric Bouhassira (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) - CellPharmer
  has developed cultured red blood cells for diagnostic and transfusion support: always available; universal or perfectly matched.
• Fawaz Al-Mufti (New York Medical College) – A venture developing a handheld stroke aspiration endovascular thrombectomy device with a unique sensor ensuring real-time feedback, addressing the critical challenge of clot disengagement.
• Funda Suer (Independent) - Revolutionizing Prenatal Care, Pre-life is a noninvasive whole genome test that detects genetic diseases of the fetus at 10 weeks from the mother's blood for prevention and treatment at pre-life.
• Jui Chaugule (Independent) - ProViZigen offers a one-time, minimally invasive treatment for PTOA, providing pain relief and improving bone quality and cartilage regeneration, backed by promising rabbit study results.
• Justin Burdge (Columbia University) -The $3 billion preclinical pain measurement market suffers from serious confounds and subjectivity. Using its expertise in automation and AI analysis of pain behavior, Tactorum will revolutionize these techniques.
• Lea Sanford (Cornell Tech) - Providentia Technologies uses novel insights from changes in cell membrane properties to optimize early-stage toxicity prediction of drug leads, while building toward making the cell membrane a druggable target.
• Lisette Fernandez (Independent) - “Bedsores Be Gone,” The 1:1, Caregiver: Patient Positioner, is a "double duty" medical device exclusively designed for one caregiver.
• Manija Kazmi (The Rockefeller University) - Aggregate Biosciences is revolutionizing diagnostics and therapeutics for amyloid-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and diabetes through development of groundbreaking tools to detect and eliminate amyloid aggregates in blood.
• Marian Okondo (Independent) - UYLA Biotech develops novel microbial therapeutics targeting neglected women’s health conditions. The team has more than 5 years’ experience in scientific research and women’s health and empowerment advocacy.
• Mehek Bapna (Independent) – Manglovo is bringing a once-weekly female contraceptive pill without synthetic hormones to market, and innovating to mitigate side effects and enhance convenience for some of the most prevalent pharmaceutical needs.

Mary Howard, Program Director, Westchester County Biosciences Accelerator said: “In addition to welcoming a new cohort of ventures, we are excited to recognize major milestones from WCBA venture alums including Laronix’s product sales and employment growth, and Jelikalite’s continued fundraising success. This year marked a 30 percent increase in applications from Westchester County for the 2025 cohort. We are proud to support life changing life science innovations and next generation leaders who are building their businesses in Westchester County.”

Members of last year’s cohort have also accomplished several important milestones. Hourinaz Behesti, founder of Hebbian Bio, has been admitted to the Merck Digital Science Studio. Anita Lee, founder of Twin Weavers, was selected for the Eva Garland national SBIR prep program. Ariel Yusupov moved FIG Therapeutics into BioInc@NYMC.

For more information on these ventures and their successes, read the Impact Report for WCBA 2024. WCBA is supported by the Westchester County Office of Economic Development, and corporate supporters: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, JP Morgan Chase, C3 Medical Device Consulting, Atostek, and Westchester Medical Center.

For more information, visit www.wcbaccelerator.com.

About Westchester County Biosciences Accelerator

Westchester County Biosciences Accelerator (WCBA) is a competitive-entry, six-month-long program that helps grow emerging bioscience ventures by providing scientist and engineer inventors entrepreneurship education and business networking to access global funders and prospective team members. WCBA supports the development of Westchester as a hub of bioscience invention and commercialization by harnessing the creativity and ambition present in the academic institutions, spinouts from established companies and serial entrepreneurs. WCBA 51 alum ventures have raised $33M, added 159 employees, secured $7M in sales and been awarded 7 competitive national SBIR grants.