Winning 1st prize of the ICPIC Innovation Academy Award was a huge encouragement for me to establish a university spin-off company which I named Acticule Life Sciences. The prestigious award together with the strong publication record from my research group enabled us to gain confidence from commercial partners and people working in the pharmaceutical industry sectors. Several anti-virulence compounds we discovered through the HTS platform have been put into the drug development pipeline of Aptorum Group, the major investor of Acticule. Now our lead anti-virulence drug candidate ALS-4 for treating MRSA infection is looking at entering into clinical trials sometime next year. Our other lead compounds are also being developed and hopefully will hit the clinical trials and the market in the near future.