Page 25 - 2022 Westchester County Economic Development Guide

Opposite , Top: SectionStarTM automates and consolidates manual lab pathology processes Opposite, Center: Clarapath CEO Eric Feintstein Below: Drug candidates developed by Sapience target substances responsible for either making cells cancerous or dampening the immune response against tumors.
Based at BioInc@NYMC, SAPIENCE THERAPEUTICS is focused on discovering and developing therapeutics for major unmet medical needs.
Sapience Therapeutics, Inc., is a biotechnology firm with a singular focus: discovering and developing peptide thera- peutics for difficult-to-treat cancers.
“Our drug candidates target protein-protein interactions (PPIs) that are responsible for either making the cells cancerous or dampening the immune response against tumors,” says Sapience's Founder, President and CEO Barry Kappel, Ph.D., M.B.A. “These
ADVANCING WESTCHESTER’S BIOSCIENCES INDUSTRY
As the Hudson Valley’s only biosciences incubator, Bioinc@NYMC (bioincny.com) offers shared resources, turnkey wet lab space, and sponsored professional services to promising, high-potential entrepreneurs and start-ups.
Visit an interactive map of Westchester's Bioscience ecosystem at: https://gis.westchestergov.com/apps/biosciences-ecosystem/explore.
Bioscience By The Numbers
• 80 bioscience companies
• 8,000 employees
• 20 percent of New York State’s
bioscience workforce
The Westchester County Bioscience Accelerator program (wcbaccelerator.com) is a competitive entry, six-month long program designed to provide entrepreneurship education and regional networking to seed-stage ventures. The program is designed to help these ventures build their teams and secure funds.
targets are considered undruggable because they are PPIs that reside inside of the cell – making them difficult to treat with small molecule drugs such as chemotherapies (which are incapable of disrupting PPIs) or biologic-based drugs such as monoclonal antibodies (which are too big to enter the cell). We aim to combine the best features of these two drug classes by developing cell- penetrating peptides that can enter cells and disrupt these cancer-causing PPIs.”
Lending Expertise
Kappel previously helped found Yonkers- based ContraFect Corporation, a clinical-
stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing biologic therapies for life-threatening, drug- resistant infectious diseases.
Given his broad experience in the biosciences sector in the County, Kappel is also helping it to grow. “I sit on the Westchester Biosciences Taskforce, along with many others that play an important role in the Westchester bio- tech ecosystem, including Deborah Novick, our Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation with the County, and Bridget Gibbons, the County’s Director of Economic Development. They have a lot of interest in our sector and they want
WESTCHESTER COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 23
© Courtesy of Sapience Therapeutics, Inc.
© Courtesy of Sapience Therapeutics, Inc. © Courtesy of Clarapath