The founder's experience: Sabrina Badir, Pregnolia
29.11.2017
Sabrina Badir and her startup, Pregnolia, are recent graduates of the Venture Kick program, having received their kick in 2016. Pregnolia are developing a tool that will help to predict the risk of preterm birth, thereby reducing the need for invasive therapies and hospitalization.
 Sabrina Badir with the Pregnolia team
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Why did you choose the entrepreneurial path?
For me it was the natural consequence of my academic path. During my PhD I created a tool that had the potential to move into clinics and help medical practitioners, as well as future moms. So founding a company to perform the next step and bring the device to the market was the natural choice, and I took it as a personal challenge in order to truly complete the work I started at ETH Zurich.
What need does Pregnolia fill, and how are you different from your competitors?
Pregnolia is developing a novel tool to ultimately predict the risk of a pregnancy terminating spontaneously before term. The current methods based on ultrasound measurements have very low predictive capabilities and effectively do very little to address this medical problem. Pregnolia’s device takes an innovative approach and looks at the problem in a totally different way: currently the gold standard is to measure the length of the cervix, but we are monitoring the stiffness of the cervical tissue. The goal is to better characterize the mechanical properties of the cervix and look for early signs that the cervix is incapable of sustaining the pregnancy to term.
You won the final of Venture Kick in 2016: What did the program bring to you and to Pregnolia?
The Venture Kick program supported us in many aspects and enabled us to transform our business idea into a business case. It helped us to increase visibility and credibility in the Swiss startup scene. Thanks to the kicker camps, we learnt a lot and improved the business case significantly. Besides that, the financial support we received and the access to a wide network have been crucial in this early phase.
You were a member of the venture leaders Life Science team in 2016, too: Can you tell us about the best highlights of the investors’ roadshow in the Boston area? What was the main thing you got out of it?
Boston is a world center for biomedical innovation, so I saw it as an invaluable opportunity to establish contacts and understand the reality of the American market. The medical device field is highly regulated and its economics depend on many local factors such as regulatory aspects and insurance coverage. I had the opportunity to engage directly with experts to further expand my knowledge and meet with investors to understand how the business case should be presented in front of US investors. In addition, the opportunity to share the experience with fellow Swiss entrepreneurs was very valuable and enjoyable.
What are the next steps for Pregnolia now?
Pregnolia is now working hard on completing the development of our first product and entering the industrialization phase. Then we need to obtain the required regulatory certification, which will allow us to bring our product to the European market.
What advice would you give to researchers who are considering founding their own startup?
Above all, I would say be persistent and reach out. While at the large scale research is a community- based endeavor, the daily life of individual researchers can be very focused on their own projects. When stepping into the entrepreneurial world, there are many other things that we need to quickly learn and understand, and the best way to do it is to talk to as many knowledgeable people as we can. And of course, be prepared to climb over many walls and overcome many obstacles.
See what people are saying on Twitter using the hashtags #10YVentureKick for our anniversary and #VentureKickGS for our Global Shapers
For me it was the natural consequence of my academic path. During my PhD I created a tool that had the potential to move into clinics and help medical practitioners, as well as future moms. So founding a company to perform the next step and bring the device to the market was the natural choice, and I took it as a personal challenge in order to truly complete the work I started at ETH Zurich.
What need does Pregnolia fill, and how are you different from your competitors?
Pregnolia is developing a novel tool to ultimately predict the risk of a pregnancy terminating spontaneously before term. The current methods based on ultrasound measurements have very low predictive capabilities and effectively do very little to address this medical problem. Pregnolia’s device takes an innovative approach and looks at the problem in a totally different way: currently the gold standard is to measure the length of the cervix, but we are monitoring the stiffness of the cervical tissue. The goal is to better characterize the mechanical properties of the cervix and look for early signs that the cervix is incapable of sustaining the pregnancy to term.
You won the final of Venture Kick in 2016: What did the program bring to you and to Pregnolia?
The Venture Kick program supported us in many aspects and enabled us to transform our business idea into a business case. It helped us to increase visibility and credibility in the Swiss startup scene. Thanks to the kicker camps, we learnt a lot and improved the business case significantly. Besides that, the financial support we received and the access to a wide network have been crucial in this early phase.
You were a member of the venture leaders Life Science team in 2016, too: Can you tell us about the best highlights of the investors’ roadshow in the Boston area? What was the main thing you got out of it?
Boston is a world center for biomedical innovation, so I saw it as an invaluable opportunity to establish contacts and understand the reality of the American market. The medical device field is highly regulated and its economics depend on many local factors such as regulatory aspects and insurance coverage. I had the opportunity to engage directly with experts to further expand my knowledge and meet with investors to understand how the business case should be presented in front of US investors. In addition, the opportunity to share the experience with fellow Swiss entrepreneurs was very valuable and enjoyable.
What are the next steps for Pregnolia now?
Pregnolia is now working hard on completing the development of our first product and entering the industrialization phase. Then we need to obtain the required regulatory certification, which will allow us to bring our product to the European market.
What advice would you give to researchers who are considering founding their own startup?
Above all, I would say be persistent and reach out. While at the large scale research is a community- based endeavor, the daily life of individual researchers can be very focused on their own projects. When stepping into the entrepreneurial world, there are many other things that we need to quickly learn and understand, and the best way to do it is to talk to as many knowledgeable people as we can. And of course, be prepared to climb over many walls and overcome many obstacles.
See what people are saying on Twitter using the hashtags #10YVentureKick for our anniversary and #VentureKickGS for our Global Shapers