Indiana's John Lowman chases entrepreneurial dreams with JADE Biotech

2016 Jul 28

The team that created JADE Biotech seeks to address a uniquely troubling problem plaguing hospital pharmacies: How to dispose of the narcotics that remain after a medical procedure, and how to deter the theft of those leftovers.

Their solution is a biosensor that can verify a person's identity as well as the concentration and volume of all narcotic waste entering the system.

Indiana's John Lowman, who recently graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in biomedical engineering, launched the company with fellow UD grads Daniel Charytonowicz and Elizabeth Soulas.

"Our first goal is to understand our customer and their problems and to validate whether the customer values our proposed solution," Lowman said. "Once we achieve that, we hope to develop a repeatable, scalable sales model by the end of summer."

Lowman said that while the team's biosensor machine is in development, he has confidence in their ability to sell their concept based on the needs of medical practices around the country.

"We've learned the value of talking to customers about their problems, to build something that solves these problems, to build something the customer actually wants."

The team got off the ground by winning $16,800 from UD's Hen Hatch and earning a grant from the National Science Foundation's I-Corps Sites Program.

JADE Biotech is currently in the midst of the Summer Founders Program, a 12-week long pre-accelerator used to validate members' business ideas.

The Summer Founders Program, administered by the Horn Program in Entrepreneurship, provides students with stipends while they work to develop their ventures. It also offers weekly mentoring and educational sessions, progress meetings with philanthropic investors and access to free and discounted services at the Horn Program's Venture Development Center.