Ideas to Implementation (I2I)

The Ideas to Implementation competition will take place on the first day of RISE UP, on February 19th, 2026. The day begins with the I2I Pitch Competition at Feinstein’s Hotel Nikko, where innovators showcase their ventures to a panel of judges and investors. Following this, a featured session, Re-Imagine Toxicity and Reducing Drug Manufacturing Costs: A Call to Action to VCs, challenges stakeholders to rethink industry practices and funding priorities. The competition concludes with closing remarks from I2I, with competition results to be announced on Saturday.

What is the Ideas to Implementation Competition? 

Important strides have been made in understanding the biology of breast cancer, and treatments have improved significantly by understanding that breast cancer is not one disease. Targeted therapeutics (specific to tumor subtype) have proliferated and are decreasing mortality and expanding options and time for those with metastatic disease. However, for the last 60 years at least, the incidence of breast cancer has continued to rise. In the United States alone, over 240,000 women develop, and 40,000 women die of breast cancer each year.  There is yet an untapped opportunity to reverse this rise. It requires an out of the box approach to merging and transforming knowledge across specialties. We can leverage advances in breast cancer treatments and risk prediction and put these in the context of the common hormonal interventions across a woman’s lifetime to generate a new approach to breast cancer prevention. Contraceptive products have fortunately been associated with a decrease in ovarian and colon cancer but are not associated with a decrease in breast cancer. We need a paradigm shift to rethink how we approach and reformulate products widely in use for women and consider this as an opportunity to reimagine prevention research and strategies for implementation. This is the goal of the RISE UP (Revolutionizing Investigations to StEp Up Prevention) for Breast Cancer interdisciplinary meeting. We can re-imagine better, more holistic approaches for breast cancer prevention. 

An important part of RISE UP is an innovative “Ideas to Implementation” session which will be held at the end of the meeting. This session aims to inspire and engage the innovator, investor, researcher, pharmaceutical, and patient advocate communities to spur idea generation and investment in reimagining how we can best integrate breast cancer risk reduction and prevention into health care products used during a woman’s life course. 

Two types of awards will be given: a “SPARK” award to foster early-stage ideas and collaborations, and an “IMPLEMENTATION” award to later stage development ideas. Interested parties should submit a proposal that outlines their idea, addresses how it is innovative and considers a holistic approach to breast cancer prevention. The most promising proposals will be selected to prepare a more detailed pitch deck, and finalists will be invited to present their ideas live in front of an outstanding panel of judges at the RISE UP for Breast Cancer meeting to be held in San Francisco, CA from February 19-21st, 2026. 

Award Descriptions: SPARK and IMPLEMENTATION  

SPARK awards will focus on transformative early-stage research efforts and/or collaborations to create a new program and approach. Selected awardees will receive an award of up to $50k. 

IMPLEMENTATION awards will be given to accelerate later stage innovations to provide the impetus for venture and industry partners to develop and test solutions. This will help lower the barrier to successful commercial implementation and help align incentives to better prioritize prevention in these spaces.