Entrepreneur & Small Business Forum 

   Choosing the Right Incubator

           Eva Cramer, SUNY Downstate Advanced Bio Incubator
  Jerry Creighton Sr., EDC at New Jersey Institute of Technology

One of the best ways to launch a firm is through participating in the business incubator of a university, non-profit, or private organization. Incubators provide start-up companies with low-cost offices and laboratories, assistance with funding, and serve as a sounding board for the commercialization process.

Incubation increases the probability that an entrepreneurial firm will succeed, due to the intellectual and financial resources it can tap into as a participant. However, there are considerable differences between incubators in terms of the type of firms they are designed to help. The meeting is devoted to clarifying these differences, as well as providing a roadmap for startup firms considering this path of development.

Leaders of two significant incubators will discuss their approaches, covering:

        - Parameters for entering regional incubators
        - Costs associated with being an incubator company
        - Spectrum of services offered by SUNY and NJIT  
        - Typical length of stay for companies in incubators  
        - Financial support services - including state, federal, and angel   
        - Operational differences between states - New York and New Jersey

                                                                                                                                                         Eva Cramer, PhD, is a Distinguished Service Professor of Cell Biology and V.P. for Biotechnology and Scientific Affairs at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. She helped raise over $90 million to develop two facilities - an Advanced Biotechnology Incubator for startups, and BioBAT at the Brooklyn Army Terminal for more mature biotech companies. She is President of both organizations, which are run independently. BioBAT will ultimately provide over 500,000 sq ft of biotech space.

                                                                                                                                                       Jerry Creighton Sr., MBA, is the Executive Director of the Enterprise Development Center (EDC) at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The EDC is among the largest high-technology / life-science business incubators in the US, averaging 90 portfolio companies per year. The National Business Incubation Association has awarded EDC the "Soft Landings International Incubator" designation, recognizing it as especially capable of helping non-US firms enter the US market.