Lu, Wang Take 2nd Place in Business Plan Competition

SymViva Technologies, a startup created by ChBE undergraduate Keran Lu and ChBE Associate Professor Nam Sun Wang, has taken second place in the Undergraduate Student Division of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute's 2008 $50K Business Plan Competition. Lu and Wang received $2,000 in prize money to continue the development of their company.

SymViva Technologies is developing advanced transdermal insulin patch technologies to replace the use of hypodermic needles in treating diabetes. Using research on ultradeformable carriers like Transfersomes®, SymViva Technologies plans to commercialize vesicular delivery technology in an insulin delivery patch that is safe, easy to use, and inexpensive to produce.

The UM $50K Business Plan Competition promotes the commercialization of innovative ideas and University-created technologies by offering faculty, students, and alumni prizes for the best new venture plans. The competition emphasizes learning by offering one-to-one coaching for finalists, as well as the experience of presenting ideas to an experienced panel of judges. Historically it has awarded a total of $385,000 in prizes to faculty, students, and alumni to launch innovative new ventures. Companies active in the Competition have generated millions in revenues, grants and awards. Past winners include Chesapeake PERL Inc., AnthroTronix Inc., Affiliate Classroom, and Squarespace Inc.

Winners of this year's competition were chosen among eight finalist teams in three categories during an event on May 9. Each team gave investor presentations to a team of distinguished judges: Henry Ahn, Program Manager, Technology Funding Programs, Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO); Warren Citrin, Co-founder and Board Member, Gloto Corp.; Ray Dizon, Managing Director, Maryland Venture Fund; Wei-Wu He, General Partner and Co-founder of Emerging Technology Partners LLC; Mark Kass, Member, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo; and Karl Renner, Principal, Fish & Richardson P.C.

Sponsors for the event included: Fish & Richardson P.C.; Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo; Maryland Technology Development Corporation; Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.

For more information:

Visit the UM $50K Business plan Competition web site »

Published May 15, 2008