New York University BioLab Adds MEND to Its Roster

BioLabs@NYULangone, a partnership between BioLabs, a membership-based network of shared lab facilities located in the nation’s key biotech innovation clusters, is the largest life sciences accelerator in the US and is based at NYU Langone Health, one of the nation’s top medical research centers.

In a very interesting move, BioLabs@NYULangone added MEND Nutrition Inc., a company that produces nutritional interventions to enhance patient healing, to its roster of leading technology companies located at its biotech coworking facility in New York City.

Who is MEND and what is a nutritional intervention?

OTW talked with founder and CEO Eziah Syed and learned that the new company was founded to help people heal and live their healthiest.

“Being at BioLabs@NYULangone will give us an advantage in attracting top science and engineering talent, while allowing us to collaborate with other like-minded companies that are finding transformative solutions for today’s health care challenges.”

According to Robert J. Schneider, Ph.D., associate dean for biomedical innovation and commercialization at NYU Langone Health, who co-led the development of BioLabs@NYULangone said, “BioLabs@NYULangone selects residents like MEND through a competitive committee review process designed to identify early-stage startups with the highest potential for growth and success. We are excited to welcome MEND into this community as we continue to build a thriving life science ecosystem in New York City.”

Eziah Syed told OTW, “We are a little further along in the maturity curve versus other startups in the lab in that we are already commercializing solutions but we are a research heavy company and being in the lab and having access to state of the art technology and facilities and to bleeding edge ideas was very compelling for us. We have already discussed collaboration opportunities with other residents. Also, the exposure to the broader ecosystem is really very powerful.”

The lab is 50,000 square feet of fully equipped lab and office space.

“In many respects being in the lab has already been a success. We have discussed partnerships with other life science startups, we have found great IP legal counsel through the lab’s events, we have talked to big pharma and are aiming to start an ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] clinical study with NYU Langone later this year. Being in the lab also gives us marketplace credibility. When prospective clients research us, they know we are a trustworthy company that is serious about good science. In a year I fully expect that we will have formalized a partnership with one or more of the startups, we will have completed our first study with NYU Langone and perhaps we will have done something with big pharma. A year from now we think we will be ready for our Series A and undoubtedly being in the lab will have helped us to get there.”