When the i-lab first opened in 2011, Vaxess Technologies, a company co-founded and led by Michael Schrader, was one of the handful of ventures that consistently showed up to work out of the new space. Last year, after a short stint at LabCentral, Schrader and Vaxess returned to Harvard’s “innovation campus” on Western Avenue in Allston as part of the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab.
Vaxess, which had received about $6M in funding, grants, and awards, recently announced that it had received another $6 million grant, this time from the Gates Foundation, in order to continue developing its silk biopolymer technology and to take its innovative vaccine delivery system to clinical trials.
Schrader, who is in a unique position having seen the Harvard Innovation Labs evolve over the years, explains that it is the community at the Harvard Innovation Labs, more than anything, that has been instrumental in helping the company grow as a venture.