Una Ryan

After excelling in academia and ascending the ranks of the pharmaceuticals industry to become President and CEO of AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Dr. Una Ryan is turning her attention to water. Her latest venture, Waltham Technologies, has developed an environmentally friendly process that makes cleaning wastewater profitable. Currently in its start-up phase, the company plans to begin beta testing in 2010 and earning revenue in 2011.

What inspired you to help people?

When I was a little girl, I lived with my aunt while my parents were abroad. Her friends were missionaries. One day, I saw a missionary film about a little boy who had leprosy and was taken away from his family. It was heartbreaking. I decided in that moment that I wanted to help people in the developing world. Later in life, I realised the best way to do this was through business.

Why cleaning wastewater?

If you’re a physician, you can cure many people in your lifetime. A medicine or vaccine can cure a single disease in a larger population. Cleaning wastewater, however, has the potential to cure many people of many diseases simultaneously. That’s what really appealed to me.

What are you currently working on?

Since the beginning of April, I’ve been working out of a lab at Boston University with my colleagues, Dr. Theresa L. O’Keefe and Peter Luciano. We’ve already shown that bioengineered blue-green algae and solar energy can be used to clean wastewater. And we’ve demonstrated that this process can be profitable, as its byproducts can be used to make biofuel. Our next step is to carry out field testing to confirm our findings.

What are your immediate goals?

In the short term, we’ll help breweries, wineries and beverage producers make a profit by cleaning their wastewater. By producing their own biodiesel on site, which they can do using simple equipment and our algae, they’ll be able to lower their taxes and save money on fuel. These industries create nearly 300 billion gallons of wastewater every year, so the potential here is huge.

Can you tell us more about the bigger picture?

Water is the most precious resource we have in the world, and we are running out of it. The wastewater cleaning methods that exist today are complicated, expensive and energy inefficient. Our process is cheaper, simpler and eco-friendly.

In the long term, I want to use the technology to provide clean water for children in developing countries. Clean water and sanitation is one of the major differences between developed and developing countries. A lot of people are focused on clean energy, but you can do without oil a lot better than you can do without water.

What is your advice for other female entrepreneurs?

• Never give in and never give up. Business is hard.
• Never grow up. Children are imaginative and noble. Whenever I feel discouraged I think of my five-year old self and remember that I’m doing this to save lives.
• If it’s important, make it happen.
• Think big. Don’t just “think outside the box”, don’t even see the box.

In the past, I’ve helped women and CEOs from the developing world get their companies off the ground. I think it’s really important try to help other women, not try to get ahead of them.

What's new?

After repeated difficulties raising VC funding, in 2009, Una Ryan accepted the offer to become CEO of Diagnostics For All and decided to close Waltham Technologies. She now concentrates on providing low-cost, easy-to-use, paper-based diagnostics developed specifically for the 60% of the developing world who live beyond the reach of urban hospitals and medical infrastructures. Diagnostics For All operates according to an innovative, hybrid non-profit/forprofit business model and has recorded excellent growth figures in its preliminary years.