Aylin is the Director of Entrepreneurship for Life Science Washington Institute. She is the primary contact for all programs including Startup Assistance Consulting, WA Innovation Network Mentoring Program, the SBIR/STTR Assistance Program, and the Lunch and Learn series. Aylin is also the Project Lead for LSW Institute’s partnership with the BARDA DRIVe Accelerator Network. In this role, she maintains knowledge of funding available to innovators, assists entrepreneurs with their applications, and collaborates with other DRIVe Network Partners to provide wrap-around services and develop programming to connect innovators with BARDA.
Aylin’s career focus has been on development of early-stage medical device concepts into commercial products. She is founder and board member of SPIWay LLC, a medical device start-up with an FDA cleared product and revenue. Aylin brings sales and marketing experience from Johnson & Johnson, where she won multiple awards related to the Ortho-Evra® drug-delivery patch, and manufacturing experience while working pre-launch on Pfizer’s insulin (Exubera®) delivery device. She also played a key role in launching PCAsso Diagnostics, an ophthalmologic diagnostic start-up. Aylin has also helped conduct multiple Phase II & Phase III clinical trials and has been awarded 3 patents and 3 STTR grants. Aylin’s B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and an MBA in Healthcare and Entrepreneurship, both from Columbia University, allow her to communicate well with both the entrepreneurs and industry leaders.