The pandemic changed how Pittsburgh’s life sciences startups get funded

CytoAgents CEO Teresa Whalen, BioHybrid Solutions CEO Jean Pineault and NeuBase Therapeutics CEO Dietrich Stephan agree: COVID-19 radically changed the way their industry operates. During a BioBreakfast panel on Tuesday morning, part of Pittsburgh’s XchangeInnovation Week, the life sciences CEOs shared their pandemic experiences, why they chose to do business in this region, and what advice they had for anyone considering starting or working at a life sciences company. In Whalen’s case, one of the biggest changes was suddenly needing to conduct clinical trials remotely for her company’s drug designed to treat cytokine release syndrome, or CRS. At the same time, Whalen said that the pandemic made awareness of CRS — which occurs when a person’s immune system responds to infection or immunotherapy drugs more aggressively than it should — mainstream, due to how many COVID patients it impacted. Read more >>