Our partners at CvilleBioHub Celebrate a Decade of Biotech Growth in Charlottesville
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 | 8:30AM - 8:00PM
CODE Building, Irving Theater
Tom Tom is partnering with CvilleBioHub for a full day of pitches, conversations, connections, and a celebration of Charlottesville’s growing life sciences community.
The 5th Annual BioDiscovery Summit brings together entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and industry leaders on Thursday September 17 for a day focused on the people and ideas shaping the future of the life sciences ecosystem in Virginia.
The Summit coincides with another milestone for the BioHub, celebrating 10 years of steering the region’s life sciences sector. Today, CvilleBioHub represents dozens of companies that have collectively brought approximately $550 million in investment and 2,500 jobs to the region. During that time, the BioHub has used the Tom Tom Festival as a local and national platform for introducing entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors to Charlottesville’s growing life sciences ecosystem.
The Summit & Tom Tom Hosted Lunch
The Summit has a few highlight the BioSpark pitch event where eight companies will compete for $30,000 in cash prizes. One company will receive a year of access to CBH’s Commonwealth BioAccelerator. Afternoon keynotes will include U.S. Senator Mark Warner and Caitlin Frazer of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. Panels will cover the opportunities and challenges of building successful biotechnology companies, particularly with access to capital, commercialization, and company building.
A reception will then celebrate CvilleBioHub’s tenth anniversary—a decade of connecting entrepreneurs, supporting founders, attracting investment, and strengthening Charlottesville’s life sciences community.
During the Summit, the Tom Tom Foundation will hold a special lunch discussion on National Biotech and Community Impact, which is a facilitated discussion with founders, investors, and researchers about how national developments in biotechnology connect to local economic opportunity and community impact. Attendees will grab a brown bag lunch at CODE before walking to the nearby Tom Tom offices (100 W. South Street).
10 Years of Partnering
The relationship between Tom Tom and CvilleBioHub stretches back to both organization’s earliest days.
In 2012, for the inaugural Tom Tom Festival, a “future of Cville” series featured leaders in key industries like software, technology, and renewables. Both Nikki Hastings and Martin Chapman, two leaders in the CvilleBioHub story, sat on the panel discussing the regions’ unique assets in biotechnology.
Three years later, those founding partners came together again in a working lunch at the Founders Summit titled the “Biotech Boom.” That conversation helped crystallize the need for an organization dedicated to connecting, promoting, and supporting Charlottesville’s emerging biotechnology sector.
The Tom Tom Festival is at the center of the origin story for CvilleBioHub. The founders of the organization were brought together for a biotech panel at the Festival and came to the conclusion that Charlottesville needed an organization to connect, promote, and assist local biotech companies. — Charlie Henneman, Program Director, CvilleBioHub
Over the decade since, Tom Tom has continued to provide a platform for Charlottesville’s life sciences community—putting founders on conference stages, connecting local leaders with national networks, and helping tell the story of the region’s growing innovation ecosystem.
Since the founding of CvilleBioHub, Tom Tom has continued to be an important element in support of its mission. Tom Tom has helped us spread awareness of local life sciences entrepreneurship by putting biotech founders on stage and creating opportunities to build relationships with professionals from outside Charlottesville. When we invite speakers to participate in Tom Tom, they are impressed by what is happening in our dynamic community—and they leave hoping to return soon. — Charlie Henneman, Program Director, CvilleBioHub
The BioDiscovery Summit continues that dynamic momentum: bringing national expertise into conversation with local leadership while creating new connections among the founders, funders, researchers, and institutions building the next generation of biotechnology.
