Twins start firm to help allergy sufferers

Over the next three to four years, the incubation center provided mentoring, networking, help with the business plan and financial model development, fundraising and help identifying a chief executive.

"Why are these guys successful? They had a great idea rooted in their personal understanding of an unmet medical need," Lohr said.

"The thing that differentiated them is these guys listened and took the advice they were given from this myriad of advisers. They processed it, integrated it, and they just kept redoing their thinking."

. . .

Now ensconced in Intelliject's modern offices in Shockoe Slip, Eric Edwards and Evan Edwards talked about what's next for them.

Evan Edwards is preparing to move to Indianapolis temporarily. The brothers are limited in what they can say about product development, so he will not say what he will be doing specifically.

"As Spencer [Williamson] likes to say, it's really the end of the beginning," Evan Edwards said. "Because there is so much more work to do."

Success, for them, will be when their auto-injector is in the hands of people, like themselves, at risk of severe allergic reactions, Eric Edwards said. That is at least a year or more down the road.

"With this partnership, Intelliject is responsible for finishing the development of the product through [Food and Drug Administration] approval," Eric Edwards explained. "It's a late-stage product. We will be filing our new drug application with the FDA [in 2010]. . . . Within the next couple of years this product should be on the market."

(Edit:Ruby)