Research Foundation News

August 24, 2016

Purdue Foundry, Wasson Enterprise partner to create impact with Purdue innovations

CHICAGO and WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  – Wasson Enterprise and Purdue Foundry officials announced Wednesday (Aug. 24) an agreement to help identify new ideas and technologies to accelerate bringing innovations to the marketplace.

Located in Discovery Park's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Purdue Foundry assists Purdue-based entrepreneurs create startup companies. Wasson Enterprise is a Chicago-based investment firm dedicated to assist entrepreneurs' through angel investing, marketing, consulting and providing other support. The two will collaborate to identify commercialization opportunities and help bring them to the marketplace.

"Wasson Enterprise is proud to partner with the Purdue Foundry and identify companies that we can help connect, mentor, market and commercialize their ideas," said Lindsay Lingle, Wasson Enterprise's vice president of operations and marketing. "Purdue has a wealth of skills, tech and great people. We are ready to help turn dreams and ideas into sustainable business."

The agreement calls for strategic meetings where Wasson Enterprise will identify areas of interest and expertise while Purdue Foundry will provide existing and emerging technologies within the Purdue community. Purdue Foundry will also provide office space for Wasson Enterprise as needed.

Company co-founder and president Greg Wasson is the former CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance. He is credited with turning the Fortune 35 company into the first global pharmacy-led, health, well-being and beauty enterprise through Walgreens' merger with European-based Alliance Boots in 2014.

"Wasson Enterprise has incomparable competence about the process of going from idea phase to commercialization and all the phases in between," said Greg Deason, Purdue Foundry's senior vice president and director of innovation and entrepreneurship. "Their assistance in all phases of the commercialization process, including angel investing, will be a great asset to the entrepreneurs seeking assistance through Purdue Foundry."

Wasson received a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue's College of Pharmacy in 1981. He received the college's 2016 Pharmacy Career Achievement Award.

About Wasson Enterprise

Wasson Enterprise is a family-based investment firm, located in Chicago, whose goal is to connect, mentor, market and commercialize dreams into sustainable businesses through angel investing, operating businesses and strategic consulting. Led by Greg Wasson, former CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Wasson Enterprise brings its partners diverse business experience and strategic expertise - a resource for success. For more information, visit www.wassonenterprise.com

About Purdue Foundry

The Purdue Foundry is an entrepreneurship and commercialization accelerator in Discovery Park's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship whose professionals help Purdue innovators create startups. Managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, the Purdue Foundry received the 2014 Incubator Network of the Year from the National Business Incubation Association for its work in entrepreneurship. For more information about funding and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org 

Writer: Curt Slyder, 765-588-3342, caslyder@prf.org

Sources: Lindsay Lingle, lindsay@wassonenterprise.com

Greg Deason, 765-588-5251, gwdeason@prf.org


Research Foundation News

Purdue University, 610 Purdue Mall, West Lafayette, IN 47907, (765) 494-4600

© 2015-22 Purdue University | An equal access/equal opportunity university | Copyright Complaints | Maintained by Office of Strategic Communications

Trouble with this page? Disability-related accessibility issue? Please contact News Service at purduenews@purdue.edu.