“There are close to 100,000 patients in the U.S. who are blind or will soon be blind due to Stargardt and RP, and they have zero hope. I joined Nanoscope Therapeutics as an investor, and then I saw that it was working. Really working. When you find your life's mission, you jump on it.”
In the modern world, inherited retinal disorders are the leading cause of blindness in the working age population. Stargardt causes blindness as early as the mid-20s.
Nanoscope Therapeutics is bringing hope for renewed sight to millions of people blinded by retinal degenerative diseases, advancing gene therapy using ambient light-sensitive molecules. It’s a bold mission, and one that’s deeply personal to Co-Founder and CEO Sulagna Bhattacharya.
“I joined this group because of my family connection with the disease,” Bhattacharya says. “Many people in my family suffer from retinitis pigmentosa, commonly known as night blindness. At first, people who suffer from RP can’t see clearly at night—they get a kind of tunnel vision—and then slowly they go completely blind.”
“There are close to 100,000 patients in the US who are blind or will soon be blind due to Stargardt and RP, and they have zero hope. I joined Nanoscope Therapeutics as an investor, and then I saw that it was working. Really working. When you find your life's mission, you jump on it.”
As promising as the new therapies are, there’s no guarantee of FDA approval until that day finally comes. For pharmaceutical research firms like Nanoscope Therapeutics, it’s all expenses in the beginning, usually for years.
“In this industry, you don’t start generating revenue until the end, when it's approved. So for us, for any company, either you succeed in the end and you make billions, or you have nothing. And the amount of money you have to raise just to try is unreal.”
It isn’t unusual for a new therapy program to cost $1 billion before it ever reaches the patient, and every stage of trials comes with risks. But Nanoscope Therapeutics is beating the odds. Their lead program, MCO-010 for night blindness, has already finished its randomized control trial, and the company is working on approval with the FDA.
“We're remarkably frugal,” Bhattacharya says. “Many companies raise $100 million just to dose the first trial patient. $1 billion to get it to approval. We haven’t even raised $100 million and we’re already headed into the final stages. It’s unheard of. A lot of that has been bootstrapping. The rest is BILL.”
The bootstrapping part comes from Bhattacharya’s philosophy. “We don’t believe in pay-to-play. It’s very common in pharma, but we don’t do it. We applied for government grants. We partnered with Bascom, the number one eye hospital, but we didn’t get their attention with donations. We got it with results. My mother was a professor. She had to quit teaching when she lost her sight. Today, she’s teaching again. Believe me, that gets attention.”
The other part was about watching every dime they had and using it to its maximum potential. For that, they turned to BILL.
“We're remarkably frugal. Many companies raise $100 million just to dose the first trial patient. $1 billion to get it to approval. We haven’t even raised $100 million and we’re already headed into the final stages. It’s unheard of. A lot of that is bootstrapping. The rest is BILL.”
As Nanoscope Therapeutics moved from federal grants to institutional investors, the team had to hit the road to get the word out. At first, they were using their own personal cards, sending in paper receipts and expenses on Excel files for reimbursement. But the cost in administrative time was significant.
“We manage our cash pretty tightly,” says Jason Davis, Nanoscope’s Controller. “For travel costs, we vet every receipt and code every transaction. Chasing people down, finding and verifying receipts, that had to be 20 or 30 hours a month easily. We were already using BILL AP, so we added BILL Spend & Expense. It has saved my group a lot of hours.”
“Chasing people down, finding and verifying receipts, that had to be 20 or 30 hours a month easily. We were already using BILL AP, so we added BILL Spend & Expense. It has saved my group a lot of hours.”
The team chose BILL Accounts Payable to manage their consultant invoices and other bills. They knew they needed a dedicated AP system to help them keep a tight watch on their expenses.
“Ramping up to the phase-3/4 trials will significantly increase our annual spend,” says Davis. “BILL Accounts Payable has worked really well for us.”
The team added BILL Spend & Expense to streamline the process of overseeing their travel expenses.
“For the R&D folks, there's lots of travel for various conferences and presentations. BILL Spend & Expense makes it a lot easier to pull support up and get visibility into what people are spending and where they're spending it. It’s easier to track down approvals too, being able to send quick notes right in the app. That just helps us out a lot.”
“BILL has helped me, too,” Bhattacharya adds. “I don’t need to sign any more checks. Nothing. It all goes through BILL. Sometimes I need to approve something if it’s above a certain limit, but that’s it. The rest of it is off my plate. That has saved me a lot of time.”
“BILL has helped me, too. I don’t need to sign any more checks. Nothing. It all goes through BILL. Sometimes I need to approve something if it’s above a certain limit, but that’s it. The rest of it is off my plate. That has saved me a lot of time.”
“BILL is really easy to navigate,” Davis says. “It’s easy to code transactions. The linking with QuickBooks works seamlessly. And then getting the approvals lined up too. You can add however many rules you have set up internally. BILL just sends everything where it needs to go.”
“BILL is really easy to navigate. It’s easy to code transactions. The linking with QuickBooks works seamlessly. And then getting the approvals lined up too. You can add however many rules you have set up internally. BILL just sends everything where it needs to go.”
“We’re managing a lot of money, pre-revenue. Tens of millions of dollars, and it’s vital that we watch every dime,” Bhattacharya says. “BILL helps us stay frugal. It helps protect us against fraud. You know, I always look at the value proposition. BILL has been a great value proposition for us.”
“We’re managing a lot of money, pre-revenue. Tens of millions of dollars, and it’s vital that we watch every dime. BILL helps us stay frugal. It helps protect us against fraud. You know, I always look at the value proposition. BILL has been a great value proposition for us.”
*The BILL Divvy Card is issued by Cross River Bank, member FDIC, and is not a deposit product.
