[caption id="" align="alignright" width="304"] The New York Business Plan Competition, held at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany last week, has become one of the largest student competitions in the Northeast. | Donna Abbott-Vlahos|Albany Business Review[/caption]

In the year since Karen Torrejon won New York's student business plan competition, life has been extremely busy for the SUNY Polytechnic Institute doctoral candidate.

Torrejon, CEO of Glauconix, is setting up a laboratory for the biotech startup, which develops technology for more effective drug screening to prevent glaucoma. The startup used much of the $100,000 prize money from the competition for equipment, operating expenses and marketing. It has brought in about $500,000 through federal grants and angel funding.

“We never thought we would have moved forward as fast as we did,” Torrejon said last week in a presentation at this year’s New York Business Plan Competition. “This competition has been instrumental in us getting to where we did.”

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May 1, 2015, 6:00 am EDT | Megan Rogers