As a microbiology PhD candidate at Tufts University studying cholera, Minmin “Mimi” Yen envisioned her future as a lab scientist, improving global health from the bench. She worked on research demonstrating that phages, natural predators of bacteria, have the potential to prevent cholera more effectively and safely than antibiotics. But during a fellowship in Haiti, she realized that scientific discovery alone isn’t always enough to make a public health impact.

“I very naively went into that situation and assumed that anything that was discovered in the lab would automatically make it to patients,” Yen says. “That’s not true in the best of cases, and that’s certainly not true in these settings where outbreaks are happening.” 

Soon after she got back to Boston, Yen cofounded PhagePro, a company that develops phage-based treatments with the mission to solve some of the world’s largest health disparities. Suddenly an entrepreneur and CEO, Yen struggled to find the connections and funding she needed to get the company off the ground. In addition to developing PhagePro, Yen was working as a postdoctoral researcher at Tufts and taking night classes toward a master’s degree in public health at Boston University.

“What’s really difficult as a young woman of color is networking,” Yen says. “A lot of people talk about family and friends as their fundraising round, and that’s just not possible in the communities that I grew up with.”

All of that changed when Yen got accepted to the Massachusetts Next Generation (MassNextGen) Initiative’s 2019 cohort.

This program, created by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC), is dedicated to ensuring Massachusetts continues its legacy of innovation in the life sciences industry by breaking down barriers for underrepresented founders. 

Fueling inclusive innovation

MassBio’s 2024 Industry Snapshot reported that Massachusetts biopharma companies received more than 20 percent of all national venture capital investments in 2024. However, nationally, women entrepreneurs typically receive less than 3 percent of that investment, and entrepreneurs of color receive less than 1 percent. 

Each year, MassNextGen awards four to five founders a yearlong package of support, including grant funding and access to a network of leaders in the life sciences ecosystem to help them refine their business strategies, expand their networks, and raise capital. More recently, MassNextGen founders have also had the opportunity to present their companies to venture capital firms in a showcase event at the end of the program.

“In our ongoing efforts to remain the leader in life sciences, we know that our greatest asset is our world-class talent,” says Kirk Taylor, president and CEO of the MLSC. “Together, industry and government are demonstrating how we can drive equitable growth and groundbreaking advancements for our state and patients around the world.”

This public-private partnership model of equity and innovation also involves industry sponsors. Takeda, the largest life sciences employer in Massachusetts, was an inaugural partner of MassNextGen when the program was piloted in 2018 and has remained an anchor sponsor ever since.

“We believe it’s our responsibility to make an impact on the lives of the patients we serve and on the communities in which we live and work,” says Julie Kim, president of the US business unit and US country head at Takeda. “Supporting MassNextGen is how we can help close a critical opportunity gap for entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities and further enable the innovation — that has become synonymous with our state — to flourish.”

In its first five years, MassNextGen was focused on female entrepreneurs. Since then, it has expanded to support a larger pool of entrepreneurs with a broader, more inclusive focus. Those eligible now include founders of color, veteran founders, LGBTQIA+ founders, and more.

From the lab to life-changing impact

With the funding from MassNextGen, Yen was able to hire PhagePro’s first full-time employee, a principal scientist who helped build the foundation of the company’s research protocols. Yen says she doesn’t think the company would have survived without this funding. Additionally, she says the connections MassNextGen helped her make were equally valuable. Mentor sessions with successful life sciences CEOs and her cohort gave Yen the support she needed to continue.

“It’s such a lonely journey, being a biotech founder, and with the added challenges sometimes of the identities we hold, it could be even lonelier,” Yen says. “Even though we were in different sectors of biotech, it was so helpful to be able to talk to people who understood the challenges.”

Having the support of the MLSC behind her made it easier to find support from others, too. “It’s exponential,” Yen says. At the start of the MassNextGen program in 2019, PhagePro was just starting research in the lab. Now, they’ve raised over $7 million of federal grant money and are nearing clinical trials. 

“It’s really exciting to see something that started off in the academic lab go almost all the way in a few years, hopefully, into humans, into clinical trials,” she says. 

Since its inception, the program has supported more than 30 awardees and created 115 jobs. About 17 MassNextGen alumni have gone on to raise capital from investors to further develop their companies, including early-stage investments and nearly $365 million in follow-on funding.

“We’re incredibly proud to have Mimi as an alumna of this program,” Taylor says. “[PhagePro was] able to leverage our programming and the Massachusetts ecosystem to continue to grow and succeed to achieve a global mission to design products for low- and middle-income countries. When Massachusetts entrepreneurs and companies succeed, the world benefits.”

Benefiting Massachusetts and beyond

MassNextGen and its sponsors aim not only to benefit founders and companies, and growing the Massachusetts life sciences ecosystem, but also the local and global population through advancing health-related discoveries.

“The sustained success of the Massachusetts life sciences ecosystem relies on our ongoing support for early-stage innovation,” Kim says. “We achieve this by championing entrepreneurs coming through the MassNextGen program, like Mimi Yen, who believes that science is a vehicle to do good in the world.”

Yen hopes that while helping communities solve cholera outbreaks, PhagePro will also demonstrate that it’s possible to focus on global health needs in emerging health markets and  collaborate with in-country partners as a for-profit business. “Even though it’s not a traditional model, it’s a model that we need to turn to as a global community to think about [the] health of everyone,” she says. “I think that philosophy also applies to disparities that we see in our own city.”

Programs like MassNextGen that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), not only for the sake of communities but for the sake of the economy and innovation, are more crucial today than ever. “We’re at a time in our world where DEI is very politicized,” Yen says. “We need to keep speaking up when it’s hard because that’s how you can make meaningful change. That solidarity is the only way we’re going to actually change the world for the better, for good.”