International Scientific Advisors

International Scientific Advisors (ISA) is a Beaverton, Oregon-based company that connects biomedical companies with Scientific Advisory Teams intended to help move innovations to market. Its stated premise is that companies stalled in the "valley of death" between research and commercialization can de-risk and reach market by pursuing contracts and non-dilutive funding from US federal agencies. The team describes roughly ten years of prior work building commercialization roadmaps and capturing federal non-dilutive funds, with ISA formed to scale that practice by training medical personnel to serve on advisory teams and matching those teams to companies.

ISA focuses on the military-connected community, training veterans, transitioning service members and military spouses with biomedical backgrounds so they can serve on Virtual Scientific Advisory Teams. It participates in the US Department of Defense SkillBridge program and positions itself at the intersection of biomedical innovation and military experience. The company is variously classified under biotechnology research, EdTech/training, GovTech and professional services, and has been listed with a waitlist-based onboarding model at joinisa.io. An associated domain, milmedconnect.com, is also listed for the company.

Founding story

ISA was founded in 2020 to scale a decade of prior team experience helping promising biomedical companies build commercialization roadmaps and capture non-dilutive federal funding, by training medical personnel to serve on Scientific Advisory Teams and connecting those teams with innovative companies.

Business model

ISA operates a tech-enabled marketplace that matches biomedical companies with Virtual Scientific Advisory Teams assembled from its community of scientific advisors, research specialists and project managers. It trains military-connected personnel with biomedical backgrounds through an online curriculum and then places them on advisory teams that support client commercialization projects, including the pursuit of non-dilutive federal funding and contracts.

The company generates revenue by providing advisory, training and project-support services to biomedical clients seeking commercialization support and federal non-dilutive funding; specific pricing terms are not disclosed. Third-party data providers report differing revenue estimates ranging from roughly $0.6 million to a $1-10 million band.

Traction

ISA reports a client base supported over multiple years, including a five-year partnership with Evrys Bio that contributed to a $34.3 million DoD award announced in 2021. Third-party listings report a team of between 1-10 and 12 people and website traffic of about 1,900 visits per month.

Latest developments

The most recent publicly reported milestone is the November 2021 announcement that client Evrys Bio secured a $34.3 million Defense Threat Reduction Agency award to develop a broad-spectrum antiviral targeting the human SIRT-2 protein. Company listings continue to describe ISA as active and at pre-seed stage, with employee counts reported between 1-10 and 12.