Phase 0: Enter the Challenge
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Phase 0 Timeline
The Challenge will begin officially on October 12th 2015 with the letter of intent phase.  Teams will be approved and accepted into the Challenge after thorough review of their LOI.  Please expect additional approval time for third-party inventions.  The final due date for LOI submission is March 14th 2016 at 11:59 pm Pacific Time.  Final  communication to prospective participants will be performed by March 15th 2016.

KEY DATES:
  • LOI Submissions Start Being Accepted: October 12th 2015 12:00am
  • Official Launch of Nano Challenge: October 15th 2015
  • LOI Submissions Last Day Accepted: March 14th 2016
Phase 0 Overview and Submission Requirements
  • Letter of Intent (LOI) Overview: 
    • Teams MUST choose a NIH invention from the inventions list OR choose to bring other promising nanotechnology cancer inventions, following the rules provided on the Inventions page
    • NOTE: third-party inventions will be accepted and evaluated independently from NIH inventions.  There is no maximum of third-party inventions accepted into the challenge; a maximum of 10 teams per NIH invention will be accepted.  A counter on the Inventions page will indicate the number of teams in each invention category
    • Challenge Teams provide information regarding the members of their Team, indicate how Challenge Team members meet eligibility requirements and outline details regarding how they intend to participate in the Challenge
    • Teams must explicitly state that they have the intent of creating a startup  
    • Challenge Teams will provide a Stakeholder Engagement Analysis AND Collaborators list (optional).  Steps to complete this are shown below
    • Please DO NOT contact NIH inventors directly.  All contact to NIH inventors should be made through the CAI team
  • What Constitutes a Complete Submission:
    • Online Submission: The Challenge uses an online system.  All Challenge materials and attachments must be submitted electronically
    • Choose an Invention: The model of this Challenge encompasses high-value nanotechnology inventions.  Teams may choose a NIH invention from the inventions list or choose to utilize a third-party invention from another organization.  Rules for these inventions can be found on the Inventions page
    • LOI Submission Form: The LOI form requires the following information: the invention selected, Challenge Team members and their capabilities, and an agreement to comply with confidentiality terms.  Challenge Team leaders need to populate an LOI for the whole team
    • CDA Form: All Challenge Team members (team leaders, core team members, mentors and advisors) need to populate a different CDA form.  To return to an existing CDA you've started and saved, simply use the same link
    • Resumes and Optional Documents:  Challenge Team member resumes (Resumes are limited to two (2) pages per team member. Please include a header on the top of each resume indicating what their role is on the team (e.g. Core Team Member, Mentor, Advisor, etc.)) 
      • OPTIONAL: Stakeholder Engagement Tool
      • OPTIONAL: Current Collaborator Information
    • NOTE ON FORMS: Upon completing each form, you will be emailed a custom link.  Please use this custom link to return to your form​​.  Contact if you cannot access your form or did not receive this custom link
  • Important Notes on Submissions:
    • File Naming Convention: In order for reviewers to easily identify attachments, please use the following naming convention for files to be uploaded to this attachment.  'University' and "Initials' must be the university and initials of the Team Leader:  'university' - 'initials' deliverable type.format (e.g. UCLA - GWB Resume.pdf)
    • If there are multiple groups within the same university and initials, the CAI team will inform your team to pick alternative initials
    • Only one file should be uploaded for each attachment category (Resumes, Stakeholder Engagement Form, Collaborator Form).  For example, if you are uploading resumes for each member of your Challenge team, please combine all resumes into one file and upload that one file to the resume category
    • Each attachment should try to be no more than 2MB in file size
    • Image files and executable files will not be accepted (e.g. jpg, .gif, .bmp, .tif, .exe)
Mandatory Team Disciplines
Nearly every successful Challenge Team requires several disciplines to be successful.  In the life sciences industry, it is even more important to have a cross-functional team given the complexities in launching a new product. As a result, we are requiring that each Challenge Team have the following disciplines:
  • Business: can be pursuing an MBA or come from the business community
  • Medical/Scientific: can be in medical school, a post-doc, in residency or, alternatively, a medical doctor, graduate with a scientific degree, or someone in the medical/scientific profession working in the Life Sciences industry
  • Seasoned Entrepreneur: A person who has founded a Life Sciences, biomedical and/or health IT company; raised dilutive and non-dilutive capital for that company and have exited.  We prefer entrepreneurs that have tenure of at least five years (a minimum of three years) in a start-up and also have had corporate experience  
Mandatory disciplines can come from the core team members, mentors, and/or advisors

​NOTE: Core Team Members, Mentors, Advisors, and/or Collaborators may be on multiple teams
Team Member Roles
When entering information about your team, you will need to indicate their role; please find below team roles:
  • A Core Team Member: is defined as a person who is accountable for deliverables; there must be two graduate student, medical student, or post-doc core team members
  • Team Leader: is defined as a core team member and primary point of contact
  • A Mentor: is defined as a person who has domain experience who will actively work with the team on a daily basis as the team needs
  • An Advisor: is defined as a person who has domain expertise and the team uses for Q&A sessions only
  • A Collaborator: is defined as an entity that can improve your probability of success in this challenge; it could include seed funders, services firms, e.g., Clinical Research Outsourcers, law firms, etc. 
  • NOTES ON ROLES: The seasoned entrepreneur can have any of the roles described above. For example, it is possible for the seasoned entrepreneur to have founded a Clinical Research Outsourcing or Pharmacovigilance company, so the seasoned entrepreneur could be a collaborator. Core team members can only join one team.  Mentors, Advisors and Collaborators can be on multiple teams
Steps for Challenge Teams to Enter
  1. Read all information on this page, the Challenge overview, eligibility and rules section of this website and the FAQs before preparing your LOI
  2. Select an invention around which you'd like to form a Challenge Team; you can find the NIH inventions here. You may also choose to use a 3rd-party invention for this Challenge
  3. Please note the "counter" on the Inventions Tab.  If the ticker has reached 10 accepted submissions, no additional submissions will be accepted for this NIH invention.  There is no limit on the number of accepted 3rd-party inventions
  4. Create your team. We realize that some teams will be formed across Universities and disparate geographic regions.  If you are looking for additional members to augment your team or are looking for a team to join please go to the Find a Team / Member page
  5. Find a seasoned entrepreneur to be on your team. There are several ways you can find an entrepreneur.  You can reach out internally to your university, or email one of the Challenge hosts for some assistance
  6. Fill out your LOI form.  Team leaders need to populate an LOI for the whole team; you can find it here
  7. ALL Team members (team leader, core team members, mentors and advisors) need to populate a CDA form; you can find it here
  8. Pull together all your team member resumes to be submitted in one file. Resumes are limited to two (2) pages per team member. Please include a header on the top of each resume indicating what their role is on the team (e.g. core team member, mentor, advisor, etc.). Load your team resumes here

OPTIONAL
  1. Please consider populating the optional stakeholder engagement form; you can find it here.  Upload this form with your resumes here
  2. Please also consider creating a document that contains all your collaborators (put all the collaborators information in one document with headers to separate different collaborators).  Upload this form with your resumes here
Evaluation Process
  1. LOIs will be accepted on a rolling basis starting on October 12th 2015
  2. We will evaluate your submission as it is entered into our system based on the criteria outlined below
  3. We will either reject or accept your submission and will communicate this to you within three days of your submission. Your submission will be rejected if the mandatory team disciplines outlined above are not represented. If your submission is accepted, you may start working on your deliverables in Phase 1: Elevator Speech

We will no longer accept LOIs after March 14th, 2016
Criteria, Guidelines, and Scoring
Overall Criteria: Adhere to the Eligibility requirements and Official Rules 
Mandatory Documents: Provide all mandatory documents outlined above in the "Phase 0 Overview and Submission Requirements;" as indicated, you will find a sample of all the documents here
Scoring Criteria: Please find below criteria and guidelines that will assist you in entering and winning the Challenge

DIMENSION 1 - ABILITY TO EXECUTE

Criteria I: Team Capabilities
  • Core team members have invention relevant experience
  • Team contains members with R&D, marketing/business development, manufacturing and other operational experience in the biomedical industry
Criteria II: Entrepreneur's Background
  • Founded a biomedical company
  • Has been with company 3 or more years
  • Successfully exited a company, e.g., sold company, IPO, M&A, etc.
  • Raised dilutive and non-dilutive funding
  • Bonus: Licensed inventions from the Federal government or a University
Criteria III: University Collaboration
  • Demonstrated cross-university collaboration to gain invention-relevant skills / experience

DIMENSION 2 - SUSTAINABILITY

Criteria I: Industry Collaboration
  • Comprehensive Stakeholder Assessment
  • Identified collaborators to improve probability of success, e.g. R&D, CROs, etc.
Criteria II: Funding
  • Both dilutive and non-dilutive funders have been strategically identified
  • Potential funders are collaborators, mentors and/or advisors to the team