Like its labs—tucked away at the far end of a Branford research park—ViiV Healthcare’s accomplishments may not be well known. But the company is an authentic Connecticut success, with a story that needs to be told. ViiV and its cutting-edge R&D to treat and someday to cure HIV because the company has had such a profound impact on so many lives. ViiV head of drug discovery Dr. Umesh Hanumegowda joined the CBIA BizCast for a conversation with CBIA Bioscience Growth Council executive director Paul Pescatello. Few of us realize that in the wake of the chaos and tragedy of the 1980s AIDS epidem ..read more

“We are a service company first and foremost, rather than IT. We just happen to do IT,” Charles IT director of finance and operations Sal Marino tells the CBIA BizCast. The Middletown-based outsourced managed service provider has seen about 30% growth year over year since 2012. But the company has much smaller beginnings. Foster Charles started the company in 2006, when he was still in high school helping small companies with things like web development or sales systems support. In 2012, he helped a large hospital become the first hospital to migrate to Google Apps. “They basically offered him ..read more

Looking back over Nuovo Pasta's success, Carl Zuanelli said he wouldn’t be where he is without overcoming major challenges. “Anybody who's looking to have a big change in their life or to go out and pursue their dream, should understand that there are no big breakthroughs without big breakdowns,” he said. One of those breakdowns for Zuanelli came with the 2008 financial crisis. At that time, 75% of the company's business involved producing pasta for chefs and restaurants, with about 25% retail. But during the economic downturn, people stopped going out to eat, and Zuanelli said it looked like ..read more

Carl Zuanelli knows his pasta. As founder and CEO of Nuovo Pasta Productions, Ltd, Zuanelli has been making fresh pasta for 35 years. “I refer to pasta as joy on a fork,” Zuanelli told the CBIA BizCast in the first of a two-part conversation. “I’ve never seen anyone eat pasta and not be enjoying it. It brings a smile to their face.” Since Zuanelli started the company in 1989, Nuovo Pasta has become a leading national producer of premium refrigerated pasta and sauce. “We make things like ravioli and tortellini and long cut pastas, like fettuccine, or linguini, tagliatelle,” he said. But Zuanell ..read more

“We love to say we’re not from Colorado,” Bolder Company co-founder Jenny Drescher told the CBIA BizCast about how the company got its name. “It does not have a ‘u’ in it. It’s Bolder, like ‘be a Bolder version of yourself.’ That’s how the name was born.” Drescher founded the professional training and coaching company in 2014 with her longtime friend Ellen Feldman Ornato. At the time, Ornato owned a training and development company and Drescher had an executive coaching business. “We were taking courses in theatrical improvisation and realizing that the skills that we were learning in improv w ..read more

For C4 Communications founder and president Colomobo DiSalvatore III, success is all about problem solving. “We try to go into our clients, we try to add value, and help solve problems,” DiSalvatore told the CBIA BizCast. “And we know that if we do that, that we will be rewarded over time.” C4 Communications is a telecommunications company specializing in helping small and midsize companies evaluate, select, implement, and manage telecommunications solutions. DiSalvatore said he sort of “fell into” the telecommunications industry and founded the company in 2001. “Between the ages of 16 and 24 ..read more

For The Computer Company president Kevin Barros, a career in IT was something of an accident. “I kind of started off individually on my own, just kind of doing a little bit of side work, make a few extra bucks on the weekends and nights,” he told the CBIA BizCast. Barros said he always liked technology, but never thought he’d own a company. “Slowly it kind of grew to one referral, to another referral.” Barros launched the venture with name KBIT Group, before acquiring Shell Systems in 2018. Through those early years, he was working by himself, while going to school. “Iit was very difficult, a ..read more

In a lifetime, one-in-four women and one-in-seven men will be affected by domestic or intimate partner violence. And each year, the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence serves about 40,000 people. “We are the state's leading voice for survivors and victims of domestic violence and their families,” CCADV president and CEO Meghan Scanlon told the CBIA BizCast. The organization has 18 member agencies across the state providing services ranging from sheltering and counseling to children’s, family, and survivor services. Their mission is to also reduce violence through outreach, educatio ..read more

Jeremy Bronen didn’t set out to be known as “the toilet entrepreneur.”  But four years after founding SedMed, that’s exactly what transpired.  “Essentially, we make toilet lifts to help older adults, people with disabilities get on and off the toilet,” Bronen told the CBIA BizCast. The concept behind the SedMed toilet lift is simple.  It mounts to any toilet and helps slowly lowers users down and locks for safety. When they are ready to get up, it lifts 80% of their body weight. “The problem was so big and I knew that a solution could solve this problem.” “I said, ‘I can make a ..read more

Like many people Adam Goldberg started to bake during the COVID-19 pandemic. Goldberg specifically baked bagels, selling them to friends out the back window of his kitchen in Westport. That hobby turned into an idea that became PopUp Bagels. “Fast forward two or three years, he opened a store in Westport, opened another store in Greenwich, and then in the city, and it's really just exploded,” PopUp Bagels CFO Jamie Lissette told the CBIA BizCast. PopUp has achieved success quickly, thanks in part to social media. “It's just really organic, because people love the product. So it makes it really ..read more