Worcester's ZATA Pharmaceuticals, Hopkinton's FoodPhone honored
PHOTO/EDD COTE
ZATA Pharmaceuticals and its President and CEO David Tabatadze are among the companies using the Massachusetts Biomedical Institute incubator in Worcester.
ZATA Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage Worcester startup developing a technology for sterilizing blood for transfusion, and FoodPhone, a Hopkinton firm that has developed a phone technology analyzing food, have been honored in a New England startup competition.
ZATA and FoodPhone were two of six New England Innovation Awards winners named Thursday in a ceremony at UMass Lowell, with ZATA one of two life science firms winning, and FoodPhone the wellness category winner. A Burlington computing network firm, 128 Technology, also won in life sciences.
Past winners of the New England Innovation Awards include Bedford robot maker iRobot, printing company Vistaprint, Boston car-sharing firm Zipcar, and Cambridge biotechnology firm Genzyme. which has been acquired by biotech giant Sanofi.
ZATA, a nine-year-old firm, has been located in Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Gateway Park for the last three years. David Tabatadze, the firm's founder and CEO, is joined by three technicians and three doctors, with a plan to hit the market by 2024 to 2027.
"It encourages us to try even better," Tabatadze said of the award. He also credited Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, from which ZATA and other startups lease space at Gateway Park, for help with certifications and a range of other needs.
"They are more than a mentor and more than an accelerator," Tabatadze said.
ZATA's blood transfusion technology takes aim at how few people today are eligible to give blood — just 38%, according to the American Red Cross, with people excluded if they have some chronic illnesses, high blood pressure, or exposure to hepatitis or AIDS, for example.
The technology sterilizes blood for transfusions, making the process safer and cheaper.
FoodPhone aims to help people better identify the food on their plate and know more about what's in it. The phone app identifies the amount and composition of food through photos, and gives a scientific analysis presented in a format similar to the familiar nutritional fact labels.
FoodPhone says the app can help diabetics track their food intake.
FoodPhone says its revenues will come from technology partner licensing, user device and data subscription, and database access fees. The company says it has already lined up leading semiconductor, phone, camera and big data technology partners, and consumer diabetes market leaders.
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