About BioAdvance
About BioAdvance

About BioAdvance

BioAdvance was founded as part of a $2 billion initiative by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to strengthen its commitment to the life sciences. BioAdvance was established in 2002 when awarded $33.8 million from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's share of tobacco settlement monies to grow the life sciences industry in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Our mission is to accelerate the growth of the region's life sciences industry by transforming its strengths in biomedical research into commercial opportunities. Fulfilling this mission, BioAdvance is:

  • Investing in emerging life sciences technologies with the most promising commercialization prospects,
  • Accelerating the transfer of technology from research laboratories to start-ups and established companies,
  • Attracting, retaining, and supporting life sciences entrepreneurs, and
  • Building collaborations between academic, entrepreneurial, corporate, financial, and government partners.

BioAdvance provides funding through its $20 million to its Greenhouse Fund, which invests in new therapeutics, biomedical devices, diagnostics and platform technologies. BioAdvance is now recognized as one of the nation's leading investors providing essential pre-seed and seed-stage funding to emerging life sciences companies. Using an investment strategy designed to identify promising research and technologies that could lead to important advances in medicine and human health, BioAdvance has committed $20.2 million in 29 seed-stage life sciences companies and 20 pre-seed companies since its first investments in 2003. Focusing on entrepreneurs in the life sciences sector, BioAdvance has invested in companies working to develop products to treat many serious health problems including Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, macular degeneration and cancer. BioAdvance's investments have enabled its portfolio companies to leverage more than $1.4 billion in subsequent capital into the region (from private equity, grants, collaborations and through M&A activity).

In addition to its funding activities, BioAdvance is a founding partner in the development of the entrepreneurship-encouraging programs such as Entrepreneur On Ramp and Career GPS. In addition, BioAdvance sponsored the development of the Greater Philadelphia Life Sciences Guide (GPLSG), which is available at www.look4science.com. The GPLSG is an online directory of life sciences companies, support organizations and consultants in and surrounding the Greater Philadelphia region. The listed companies, organizations and consultants support existing and emerging life sciences firms in our region. This project is a collaborative effort between BioAdvance, Select Greater Philadelphia and the University City Keystone Innovation Zone.