Abraar Karan, MD, MPH
Abraar Karan, MD, MPH, of the Department of Medicine, received the Dubilier Grand Prize at the Harvard Business School New Venture Competition for his and his collaborator’s development of, Hour 72+, a long-acting mosquito repellant. This $75,000 award recognizes new entrepreneurs and their accomplishments. The project was also awarded the competition’s $5,000 Crowd Favorite Prize.
The Dubilier prize was established by New York and London-based private investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in 1998 in honor of its founder, Martin Dubilier (MBA 1952), to support entrepreneurship.
Karan, along with his business partner, Andrew Rothaus, MBA, created Hour 72+, an insect-repelling technology that will last three days. Their idea for the project came about during the outbreak of the Zika virus, which underscored the need for a long-lasting insect repellant in a global health setting. Hour 72+ aims to address those issues by providing effective protection against mosquitoes and ticks and the illnesses they carry, without the use of harmful chemicals such as DEET or pyrethrin.
