Boston Globe Big Night Live Award Ceremony, November 29, 2023. Left to Right: Sean Loughran, BioProcure Purchasing Manager, Jeannette Franklin, BioProcure/Prendio Sr. Marketing Manager, Christina Hem, Prendio Jr. Business Analyst, Tyler Mizenko, BioProcure/Prendio VP of Relationships and Business Development, Laura Stack, BioProcure/Prendio Co-Founder and COO, Vincent Bologna, BioProcure/Prendio Co-Founder and CEO, Marie Lodi, BioProcure/Prendio VP of HR, Brianna O’Brien, BioProcure Procurement Supervisor, Claire Buckley, BioProcure Customer Support Manager, and Daniel Simons, BioProcure/Prendio Financial Analyst

From a small home office in the founders’ unfinished attic to #1 Best Place to Work— BioProcure/Prendio has certainly evolved, but some things remain the same.

2023 has been a pivotal year for BioProcure and Prendio. This past October the companies announced a strategic investment from Primus Capital to accelerate growth and innovation across all services and offerings. Now, just over a month later, we are sharing more exciting news: BioProcure/Prendio has been named the #1 Best Place to Work in Massachusetts by the Boston Globe. 

“When we heard that we’d been selected by the Globe as one of the Top Places to Work in Massachusetts, we were thrilled,” said Laura Stack, co-founder and COO of BioProcure and Prendio. “Winning #1 Best Place to Work in the mid-sized company category was a huge surprise!” 

“I’m still surprised that we are considered a mid-sized company,” added Vincent Bologna, co-founder and CEO of BioProcure and Prendio. “In my mind, we’re just a small family business.” 

It’s safe to say that many of BioProcure and Prendio’s team members would agree with Bologna on that point—and perhaps the tight-knit, family feel is one of the reasons for this win. Bologna and Stack—a husband and wife team who met on the job at Wang Laboratories and worked together professionally in various capacities in the following years—originally hired other immediate family members to help them as their business grew: daughters, sons-in-law, brothers, nieces and nephews.

“I remember how excited we were to hire our first non-family co-worker,” said Kara Rea, BioProcure and Prendio’s Marketing Manager and Bologna and Stack’s oldest daughter. “We had just moved into our first real office. It had three tiny little rooms, and we were like, wow! We’re an actual company now, this is all so official! Laura and I sat down to interview Johnna Worob, and the three of us were trying our best to come across as very professional. At one point Laura said, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to be honest with you… You need to know that you’ll be the only one in here who isn’t related to everyone else.’ And Johnna was just like, ‘Oh, great. You guys are nuts, aren’t you?’ By the end of the interview we were all in tears laughing. Johnna’s been with us for almost eleven years now.”

Work meeting at the expanded Woburn office, 2017. Left to Right: Laura Stack, BioProcure/Prendio Co-Founder and COO, Lindsay Gross, BioProcure Procurement Supervisor, AZ Office, Jim Bukartek, Prendio Sr. Director of Product Success, and Vincent Bologna, BioProcure/Prendio Co-Founder and CEO

Hiring continued as demand for the life science procurement and accounts payable support services offered by BioProcure increased. In 2014 Sean Loughran, BioProcure’s Purchasing Manager, joined the team as a Procurement Specialist. Shortly afterward Tyler Mizenko, BioProcure/Prendio’s VP of Relationships and Business Development was hired as a Customer Support Intern. Laurie Martin was the company’s first Accounts Payable Specialist hire in 2015. After multiple promotions, she is now the Senior Manager of HRIS Benefits and Compliance for BioProcure/Prendio.  

When the need for a specialized life science procurement tool became apparent in 2015, BioProcure had roughly 20 employees, all of whom were tapped to lend their experience in procurement and accounts payable for biotech companies in the effort to build a software to fit the specific needs of an expanding client base. Some of those employees ended up officially transitioning to the Prendio team—like sisters Christina and Amanda Hem, who started as Accounts Payable and Procurement Specialists, and have since been promoted to Prendio’s Junior Business Analyst and eCommerce Specialist, and Jim Bukartek, who was hired as a BioProcure Procurement Specialist in 2015 but quickly rose to Prendio leadership. This past month, Jim was promoted again to Senior Director of Product Success.

BioProcure and Prendio have a total of 186 employees as of this article’s release, working hybrid or in-person from the office headquarters in Woburn, MA, the Western office in Chandler, Arizona, and virtually from all over the United States. In 2024 another move is planned, to an even larger headquarters based in Burlington, MA. 

It’s a big step up from the first company headquarters in the unfinished attic space of the couple’s home in Lexington, MA, where Bologna, Stack, and Rea worked long hours together while Laura’s brother Tim Stack placed orders remotely from upstate New York. “I’m pretty sure my desk was actually an old door balanced across two filing cabinets,” Rea remembers with a laugh. “A lot has changed in the last sixteen years!”

Kara Rea, BioProcure/Prendio Marketing Manager, pictured with office cat Suzi in 2009 in the original BioProcure headquarters in the attic of Bologna and Stack’s home

And while that statement is certainly true, some things—like the “BioProcure Way” philosophy, now solidified into seven core company values—have stayed very much the same. “We want to help facilitate success,” Bologna clarifies. “It’s the whole reason behind everything we do. We want to help labs and scientists succeed in their research. We want to help venture firms plant and grow new startups, to do whatever we can to conserve their resources so they can make important discoveries that will help people. But it doesn’t end with the clients. Our mission extends to each other–we want to see each other succeed. That’s why we love promoting from within, and why we’ve done that from the beginning. We want to support families with a great work/life balance. We want to be the kind of place where people feel included, and secure, and happy, where they know that if they work hard, their efforts won’t be wasted. That’s always been the goal.”

Vincent Bologna, BioProcure/Prendio Co-Founder and CEO, pictured with Suzi the office cat in the original BioProcure attic headquarters, 2009

According to the results of the employee survey conducted by the Boston Globe in April of 2023, BioProcure and Prendio are hitting that goal. The results showed that team members most often described the company as ‘inclusive’, ‘connected’, ‘supportive’, ‘positive’, ‘friendly’, and ‘motivating’. Others mentioned that BioProcure and Prendio are ‘customer-focused’, ‘compassionate’, and ‘value teamwork’.  

There is another word that BioProcure/Prendio team members used repeatedly to describe their company in the survey results. You can probably guess by this point what the word is.

Family.

BioProcure and Prendio were presented with the Boston Globe award for #1 Best Place To Work in Massachusetts on Wednesday, November 29, 2023. Click here to read the featured article on the Globe website. 

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Harvard Medical School Center for BioethicsHarvard Medical School Center for Bioethics5d • 

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What these stories have in common is a mindset that continues to drive our organization: Your future is limitless. When we work together to create positive change, overcome challenges, and explore what’s possible, there really isn’t any goal we can’t achieve.

Explore Limitless Magazine

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Watch our TandemViz demo here

To learn more or to set up a demo on your system contact John Geanacopoulos, Director of BD: john.geanacopoulos@tandemai.com

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Zurich, Switzerland – November 16, 2023

InSphero AG, the global leader in 3D cell culture technologies and organ-on-chip systems for drug discovery, and ATCC, the world’s premier biological materials management and standards organization, will work together to introduce new paradigms in the rapidly evolving field of 3D cell-based oncology research.

Unlock access to an expansive and diverse portfolio of 3D tumor models

A primary objective of this collaboration is to give the scientific and research communities unprecedented access to assay-ready 3D tumor microtissues. This is made possible by synergistically coupling ATCC’s authenticated cells with InSphero’s innovative, industry-leading 3D cell-based assay platforms. Moreover, the partnership will provide an expansive and diverse portfolio of tumor models, ensuring researchers have access to enriched data sets that underpin better decision-making in drug discovery and development.

Advancing cancer research through uniform, reproducible, and scalable 3D tissue models from high-quality cell lines

“Through this partnership with ATCC, we are fulfilling a long-standing ambition to open new avenues for advancing cancer research at a global scale,” said Dr. Jan Lichtenberg, CEO of InSphero. “By supplying assay-ready 3D tumor microtissues based on ATCC cells, we’re not only significantly accelerating research timelines but also setting a new gold standard for uniformity and reproducibility in the research community.”

In addition to offering innovative products, InSphero will provide educational webinars and workshops with ATCC’s support to promote awareness and training around this cutting-edge technology. These efforts aim to equip the research community with the essential tools they need for the efficient generation of high-quality data.

“The combination of InSphero’s technology with ATCC’s high-quality cell lines to generate 3D models in a convenient format will greatly benefit the oncology research community,” said Dr. Ruth Cheng, ATCC Senior Vice President and General Manager, Research & Industrial Solutions. “This partnership is an important advancement in oncology drug discovery and development toward the next generation of therapies.”

https://insphero.com/insphero-to-revolutionize-oncology-research-through-advanced-3d-cell-based-assays-with-atcc/

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Click here to listen to how we help our customers commercialize their products through multiple phases such as product design & development, manufacturing, supply chain management, and worldwide fulfillment.

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Our team is looking forward to the prospect of participating in the comprehensive program, featuring signature lectures, scientific workshops, and special interest sessions from December 9-12. Our team eagerly anticipates engaging with attendees, and sharing insights into the latest developments in malignant hematology at booth #3447.

We look forward to demonstrating the MARS® Platform in action and facilitating discussions with Liping Yu, Vice President of Applications at Applied Cells, who will provide valuable insights into how this technology can enhance individual research applications. The MARS® Platform offers unparalleled advantages in target cell enrichment, boasting high purity, reproducibility, and recovery, thereby optimizing cell separation protocols.

We look forward to the possibility of seeing you there!

Learn more: https://appliedcells.com/ash23/

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Navigating year-end financial planning for your stock compensation can be quite a challenge, particularly when set against the backdrop of ongoing market turbulence. The past two years have seen headlines dominated by concerns over inflation, interest rates, and the roller-coaster ride of the stock market. The pressing question on everyone’s mind is whether this will change for the better in 2024. It’s a question without a clear answer, yet we understand that markets, in their efficiency, tend to find their balance over time, ultimately leading to recovery.
Given the uncertainty, let’s explore the crucial aspects you should consider in your year-end equity compensation strategy:

1. Prioritize Your Goals: Instead of letting taxes dictate your actions, make your financial goals the cornerstone of your decision-making process. Consider whether you’ll need to allocate company stock toward a financial goal in 2024, especially if you anticipate higher income due to substantial Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) vesting. If the answer is yes, consider exercising options in 2023 to shift income to the current year.
2. Create a Multi-Year Strategy: You may want to consider optimizing your various equity grants with a multi-year strategy that helps mitigate higher taxes and helps enhance the long-term value of your equity. Review vesting schedules for RSUs, restricted stock, and stock options, and assess the likelihood of substantial performance share vesting in 2024 based on your performance targets. 
3. Leverage Tax-Loss Harvesting: In a bear market, consider selling company stock at a loss and repurchasing it after 30 days to avoid the wash sale rule. Recognizing capital losses in 2023 can yield benefits in future years, potentially reducing your tax liability on capital gains.
4. Prepare for Job Changes: If you’re expecting a job change at the beginning of the year, conduct a pre-year-end review. Determine which grants will vest before your departure and be ready to exercise options after leaving the company if necessary. Estimating your 2024 income might lead you to accelerate income by exercising non-qualified stock options or selling low-cost basis company stock in 2023.
5. Embrace Charitable Giving: Consider donating company stock instead of cash, especially if you own highly appreciated stock. Donating stock to a charity grants you a tax deduction for the full market value while allowing you to support a cause close to your heart.
6. Consider ISO Planning: Incentive stock options (ISOs) offer unique tax treatment. To enjoy preferential treatment, you must hold the stock for two years from the grant date and one year from the exercise date. Careful planning is key. Here are a couple of ideas to consider:

• Exercising ISOs at the start of the year can kickstart the holding period for long-term capital gain treatment. Consider selling the stock before year-end to eliminate your AMT liability, especially if your company’s stock price has dipped. This is called a disqualifying disposition, and you will pay ordinary income taxes instead.
• In the current volatile market, you may have an opportunity to exercise more ISOs without triggering the AMT.

7. Seek Professional Guidance: Navigating the intricate world of equity compensation tax implications and strategies is no easy task. Always consult a tax accountant and financial advisor to devise the best strategy tailored to your unique situation.

The year 2023 may hold its challenges, but with the right strategy and guidance, you can steer your equity compensation toward success in the year ahead.

This material is intended for informational/educational purposes only. Commonwealth Financial Network® and Freedom Trail Financial does not provide legal or tax advice.

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