CDL Health
Advanced Therapies
Founding Partner, Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine
For founders solving biological, medical, and healthcare problems using innovative applications of cell and gene therapies, biologics, antibody-drug conjugates, and other biological products.
The Advanced Therapies global stream admits an annual cohort of pre-Seed and Seed stage startups. The program brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and scientists with expertise building scalable companies in a variety of fields related to biology, medicine, and healthcare.
CDL startups work with these mentors to sharpen objectives, prioritize time and resources, raise capital, and engage with experts working on the frontiers of research.
The startups attend five in-person objective-setting sessions between October and June. CDL is a non-profit organization. There are no fees for participation and CDL does not take any equity. Learn more about the CDL program.
The global Advanced Therapies stream operates across four CDL sites:
Who Should Apply?
The Advanced Therapies Stream is particularly suited to founders who are on the cutting edge of health therapeutics innovation, utilizing biological products and related technologies to build viable and commercialized therapeutics. This stream is tailored towards early-stage companies (early venture or growth) or even projects (pre-incorporation); however, startups at all levels of maturity will be considered.
Example Innovation Areas
- Cell Therapies: Autologous and allogeneic cells that have therapeutic functions. This includes cellular immunotherapies, cancer vaccines, hematopoietic stem cells and adult and embryonic stem cells.
- Gene Therapies: Pharmacological or biological substances to modify or manipulate the expression of a gene or to alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use. This includes proprietary recombinant genes, gene-editing, and genetically-modified cells.
- Tissue-Engineered Products: Biological tissues engineered and grown in the laboratory environment designed to mimic, replace or enhance existing tissues for therapeutic purposes.
- Biologics (e.g., Immunotherapies): Biological products used for diagnosis, treatment or prevention of disease and restoring, correcting or modifying organic functions. Includes a wide range of products such as vaccines, blood and blood components, allergens, antibodies, tissues, and recombinant therapeutic proteins.
- Antibody-drug conjugates: Therapeutics which take advantage of the specificity of antibodies in binding to endogenous proteins, enabling targeted delivery of bound drugs, thus minimizing side effects and off-target effects.
- Synthetic Biology: Combining genetic and tissue engineering with biotechnology to create designer microorganisms, organoids, and tissue systems to act as a test bed for development and testing of novel therapeutics.
- Microbiome-modulations: Therapies that alter, repopulate or inoculate the microbiome to effect beneficial changes systemically or in the local environment.
- Advanced Therapeutic Process Improvements: Technologies that improve the efficiency and/or reduce the cost of producing biological compounds such as proteins, genetic material, or cell therapies.
The list above is not exhaustive. Contact health@creativedestructionlab.com to discuss the program and your venture with someone from the Advanced Therapies Stream.
Our Mentors
CDL mentors include accomplished entrepreneurs, experienced operators, active angel and venture investors, world-leading scientists, engineers, and economists. Mentors meet every eight weeks to help founders set objectives over the program’s nine-month duration.
See all CDL Advanced Therapies mentors ▶︎
For more information or to schedule an introduction meeting with the CDL team, email health@creativedestructionlab.com.