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Austin Technology Incubator Graduates Two Bioscience Companies: Savara Pharmaceuticals and Terapio

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Tonight, at a special graduation and alumni event, the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), a not-for-profit part of the IC2 Institute of The University of Texas at Austin (UT), will graduate 21 companies.  Of those 21, two companies were part of ATI’s Bioscience portfolio: Savara Pharmaceuticals and Terapio. Both have had a tremendous impact on the growing bioscience community in Austin, hiring dozens of workers and raising millions of dollars in funding.

Over 20+ years, ATI has developed and refined industry specific capabilities, currently organized into Information Technology, Wireless, Clean Energy and Bioscience sectors. In each industry sector, ATI brings its portfolio companies deep domain expertise, market- and technology-specific networks of advisors and investors. Tonight’s graduation event showcases successes in all four sectors, including two remarkable companies in bioscience.

Founded in 2008 in partnership with the City of Austin, ATI-Bioscience works closely with other members of the Central Texas and statewide life science ecosystem, including BioAustin, Central Texas Life Science entrepreneurs, the University of Texas faculty and students and regional hospital and healthcare groups.  ATI-Bioscience recently completed a study, supported by the regional community and the Economic Development Administration, to quantitate the need of wet-laboratory space to support life sciences companies in Central Texas.  ATI-Bioscience has also partnered with UT’s College of Pharmacy to create an on-campus wet lab facility, UTech Dorm Room, which can be accessed by early-stage life sciences companies in Austin.  The ATI-Bioscience hosts symBIOsis, a quarterly educational series, co-sponsored with the Rice Alliance, to bring the entrepreneurial, commercial and academic life sciences communities together. The two Bioscience graduates are:

Savara Pharmaceuticals is developing the first inhaled antibiotic for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients targeting the highly contagious “super bug” Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). MRSA is dramatically increasing worldwide.  Savara’s Aerovanc has recently completed its first clinical with encouraging results.

Terapio is a biopharmaceutical company developing the RLIP76 protein as a medical countermeasure for radiation exposure and chemical threats to civilian, military and first responder populations. The RLIP76 protein works though the oxidative stress pathway and protects as both a prophylactic and post-exposure treatment. Terapio tapped the unique talents and network at ATI to help secure Texas ETF, federal grant and venture capital funding totaling over $7M in less than two years.

“We are extremely excited and pleased about our first bioscience graduate companies,” said Cindy WalkerPeach, PhD, Bioscience Director. “Terapio and Savara are exceptional healthcare-focused companies that will not only have a positive impact on patient care but will favorably impact regional economic growth as well.”

Contact:

Laura Beck for ATI

laurabeckcahoon@gmail.com

512-786-1098

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symBIOsis: Personalized Medicine

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

The Austin Technology Bioscience Incubator and the Rice Alliance – Austin Chapter hosted symBIOsis, a life sciences networking and educational event, Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at the AT&T Center. About a hundred life sciences entrepreneurs, UT faculty and students, and many others who are part of the life sciences industry attended symBIOsis this year; enjoying food and drink, networking, and an expert panel discussion on personalized medicine.

Dr. Cindy WalkerPeach, ATI Bioscience Director, moderated the discussion, which included speakers Thomas Caven, M.D., VP Medical Affairs/Medical Director at UMC Brackenridge Hospital; Jessica Hanover, Ph.D., life sciences strategy & operations consultant and inaugural ATI Bioscience Director; Dana Merry, MPH, Director of Strategic Accounts at CVS Caremark; and, Jay Stoudemire, Ph.D., Director of Pre-Clinical Development at Mirna Therapeutics, Inc. Personalized medicine goes by many names, such as companion (molecular) diagnostics and pharmaco genomics, but it is essentially the right medicine for the right patient at the right time.

Dr. WalkerPeach provided the audience with a chart with patient response rates, based on traditional care methods, for a number of widespread diseases, such as diabetes and depression. Dr. WalkerPeach said that using personalized medicine we can do better than a 60 percent efficacy rate, because if it is the right medicine for you it should work all the time without side effects.

Thomas Caven, M.D., said the current model for medical practice is to diagnose and treat diseases and disorders by first looking at the list of symptoms and narrowing down the possible causes, while taking family history and risk factors into account. Many medications may only be a viable option for 60 to 70 percent of a population, and side effects and interactions with other medications need to be considered.

Jessica Hanover, Ph.D., said that the era of the blockbuster drug is over, which have made billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies, but only have a 5 percent response rate for patients.

Thomas Cave, M.D., said that the Human Genome Project, and the sequencing of the first complete human genome in 2003, served as the impetus for the advances in personalized medicine today. Genetic counseling can reveal which diseases or disorders people are at higher risks for; or in other words, which genes have a higher level of penetrance, the likelihood that certain disease genes will express themselves. Of course, environmental and lifestyle effects need to be studied as factors for disease risk as well. BRCA1 and BRCA2 were one of the first biomarkers for disease; breast cancer in this case, that were discovered and effectively used as a tool to develop personalized medicine for its high frequency carriers.

Jay Stoudemire, Ph.D., talked about the discovery of microRNA (miRNA) in 2001, which are short, single-stranded non-coding RNA that regulate gene expression for up to 50 percent of cell pathways. MicroRNA introduced into cancer cells of lab mice has successfully been able to suppress tumor growth and ultimately cure them. Stoudemire said that is a big step towards the cure for cancer in humans.

Once the genetic mechanisms for disease are understood and the drug treatments developed, the next hurdles are regulatory guidelines and insurance/payment issues, discussed by Dana Merry, MPH. Merry said that education for all involved is the most important step, including cost-benefit analysis for treatment and coverage, growth of the private sector, and payors focused on quality outcomes more than ROI.

Could we one day live in a world where a drop of blood could be taken, our genomes fully sequenced and used to pinpoint specific disease genes, and then specific drugs developed to suppress those disease genes for an affordable amount?

The overall consensus at symBIOsis was that this reality is not too many years away and personalized medicine has big potential to disrupt the entire healthcare industry. However, ethical concerns abound with issues from “designer babies” to medical record security and insurance privacy laws.

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3 Day Startup Starts Up Again…

Monday, October 17th, 2011

On October 21st, 40 student entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds will participate in the fifth iteration of 3 Day Start Up, a highly energetic, often sleepless, weekend where big ideas are turned into viable companies over the course of three days. 3 Day Start Up liberates students from the classroom, and creates an environment where budding entrepreneurs can learn by doing. Over the course of a weekend, students pitch their business ideas, vote on the projects they find the most compelling, and ultimately self organize into project teams to create a prototype, perform market research, and formulate a business strategy. Participating students hail from myriad backgrounds including computer science, engineering, business, law and design, to create the skill set necessary to jumpstart a company. The weekend event is hosted by Austin Technology Incubator.

 The culmination of the event is 7:00pm on Sunday October 23rd, when students pitch their start-ups to a wide array of Austin entrepreneurs including:

  • Bob Metcalfe, Professor of Innovation, Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise at the University of Texas at Austin;
  • Gary Forni, Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN);
  • Josh Baer, Capital Factory & OtherInbox;
  • Zaz Floreani, Austin Ventures

When asked about the influence of 3 Day Start up on their academic and professional careers, previous participants have said the following:

“3DS takes all kinds of people from their respective little boxes and encourages them to bring their talents together to make something great.” – Jeff Zhao, BBA Finance, 3DS Spring ’11

“3DS has been by far the best experience I’ve had thus far as a graduate student. The weekend is intense and sometimes grueling but it’s also just a lot of fun. “- Rene Pinnell, MS Design, 3DS Fall ’09

“At 3 Day Startup, we learned by doing. Instead of sitting in an auditorium, I worked with forty like-minded people to go through the process of launching something great. The next time I go to a seminar on entrepreneurship, I’m going to sit in the middle of the front row, watch the PowerPoint presentation, and think to myself, ‘I’ve done that.’” – Rishi Shah, Plan II Honors, 3DS Fall ’10

3 Day Start Up began with a simple idea: start a technology company over the course of three days. Over the last three years it has evolved into a popular event campus-wide with a highly competitive selection process.  Companies that have emerged from previous 3 Day Start Up events include: Famigo (www.famigogames.com/), Hurricane Party (www.hurricaneparty.com), and HootMe (hoot.me).  3 Day Start Up was started by students and is run by students. For more information on 3 Day Start up, please visit our online media guide at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5rzbSUfJv8 or go to http://3daystartup.com/.

For information about the event happening at Austin Technology Incubator, October 21-23, please go to: http://austin.3daystartup.org/

Contact: Suzanne Burley                                                       

Phone: 201-759-1115

Email: sburley@ati.utexas.edu

 

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UTech Dorm Room Welcomes First Tenant

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

 A start-up company established by a Nobel Laureate chemist is the first tenant in the UTech Dorm Room, a cooperative research laboratory located at The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Pharmacy.

Altermune, home-based in Corona del Mar, California, is expected to begin operations this month in the UTech Dorm Room wet laboratory.  Dr. Kary Banks Mullis, a 1993 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, established Altermune, a company that seeks to use the body’s own immune system to specifically target and attack infectious diseases and cancers through “programmable immunity.”  Utilizing the body’s natural antibody defense, Altermune drugs work to redirect antibodies to specific cellular biomarkers using modified nucleic acids called aptamers.

“We are delighted to welcome as our first tenant a research company with such impressive credentials from its founder,” said Dr. Lynn Crismon, Dean of the College of Pharmacy at UT Austin. “Altermune is on the forefront of the battle against infectious diseases.  I am delighted that our professional degree students, as well as our graduate scholars will have opportunity for interaction in these research efforts.”

The UTech Dorm Room is a cooperative venture between the College of Pharmacy, the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) and the City of Austin.  While most labs at UT Austin are devoted to the research of a particular faculty member, the UTech Dorm Room is designed to provide bioscience entrepreneurs outside the university community the opportunity to contractually reserve wet lab space for a period of time, as they test and develop their technologies and potential products.

“There are few start-up incubator facilities in a city where bioscience entrepreneurs are flourishing,” said Bradley Hall, lead scientist for Altermune’s product development.  “Wet lab space is required for bioscience research and Altermune is excited to begin work in the UTech Dorm Room.  As a former UT graduate student and research educator through the Freshman Research Initiative, I look forward to working with bright students and world class professors.”

The City of Austin, through its economic development department, committed $35,000 to assist in purchasing equipment and in refurbishing the lab space.  The funds will also support the salary of the lab management team.

Dr. Cindy WalkerPeach, ATI Biosciences Director, said the deal with the first tenant represents a success story in Central Texas to support life sciences and biotechnology startups.  “The UTech Dorm Room is the beginning of our long-term plans to encourage interaction between healthcare-focused start-up companies and university faculty and reduce facility barriers to commercialization. Access to Web Labs is critical for proof of concept testing in bioscience, yet space is rare and very expensive.  We all worked tirelessly – ATI, the City of Austin, the UT Austin College of Pharmacy – to create the UTech Dorm Room, and to make sure it extends beyond university students to serve industry needs overall.  Welcoming Altermune to the UTech Dorm Room is a huge validation of this commitment.”

View http://www.utexas.edu/pharmacy/news/spotudr11.html for the full release.

For additional information concerning this story, please contact:

• Dr. Bradley Hall, Altermune

   Bradley.hall@altermune.com, or (512) 809-1800.

• Dr. Janet Walkow, Drug Dynamics Institute, UT Austin College of Pharmacy

   jwalkow@mail.uaatexas.edu, or (512) 471-4841.

• Dr. Cindy WalkerPeach, Austin Technology Incubator        

cwalkerpeach@ati.utexas.edu, or (512) 305-0040

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2011 FALL SPEAKER SERIES EVENT

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Are you interested in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship?  On behalf of the University of Texas, Cockrell School of Engineering, and the Chair of Free Enterprise, we would like to invite you to attend weekly technology entrepreneurship seminar series.

This is a graduate level seminar hosted in conjunction with the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), the Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC), and the Idea to Product® Program (I2P®).  It is open to the community and the public and will be held on Fridays from 3 – 4 pm in the Engineering Teaching Center, ETC 2.136. ETC is located at 204 E. Dean Keeton St. Networking Office Hours with Austin Technology Incubator will follow the seminars.

The seminar series will cover topics essential to technology commercialization and entrepreneurship, and feature outstanding UT Faculty and professionals that have commercialized their technologies.  A schedule of the seminar is below and a poster of the first seminar is attached to this email.

The first seminar is on August 26th, 3PM in ETC 2.136: Professor Metcalfe: Disruptive Innovation – How Ethernet Started 3Com to Change the World. Dr. Metcalfe invented Ethernet in 1973 at Xerox Parc and founded 3Com in 1979 in Silicon Valley. 3Com became part of HP in 2010 and this year a billion Ethernet faucets where added to the Internet’s plumbing, if you count WiFi, which Bob does.

 

Technology Commercialization Seminar & Office Hours, Fall 2011, Fridays 3-5pm, ETC 2.136

  
Date Topic Speaker:

26-Aug

How Ethernet Started 3Com to Change the World

Dr. Bob Metcalfe

2-Sep

 Computer Science Commercialization

Dr. Emmett Witchell

9-Sep

The accidental entrepreneur

Dr. Cindy WalkerPeach

16-Sep

 UT Office of Technology Commercialization

Richard Miller, M.D.

23-Sep

Commercializing Low-Cost Nanopatterning Technology

Dr. SV Sreenivasan

30-Sep

 DermDx Inc.: Development of a noninvasive skin cancer diagnostic device

Dr. James Tunnell

7-Oct

 No seminar scheduled  

14-Oct

 Commericalization experience and funding sources – SBIR/STTR

Dr. Sriram Vishwanath

21-Oct

Business Plans for Technology Commercialization

Dr. Gary Cadenhead

27-Oct (Thursday) 1-5pm

Venture Expo – Showcase of Texas Venture Labs Companies

AT&T Center

If you have any questions, please contact Jakub Felkl, Idea to Product Program® Coordinator, at jfelkl@mail.utexas.edu or 512.232.4102.  

 

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NanoLite Systems ‘Conquering Breast Cancer’

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Austin Technology Incubator new member company NanoLite Systems, Inc. was recently featured in an article, “Conquering Breast Cancer” by Marjorie Smith for the UT Austin Cockrell School of Engineering on June 28.

“Cancer is the top disease that is killing people,” said Dr. John Zhang, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Cockrell School. “And right now, we know biopsy is the standard. Doctors are removing tumors in the breast without having anything to tell them if the whole tumor has been removed … patients wait through a 24-hour time cycle to learn whether the cancer tumor is still there.”

The facts are that breast cancer affects nearly one out of eight American women during their lifetime and around 40 percent of patients undergo more than one surgery to remove malignant breast tissue.

Zhang has developed a new technology that acts like a GPS device for cancer surgeons. The instrument guides doctors during surgery, enabling them to see in real time whether all of the cancerous tissue has been removed. The key innovation behind the technology is a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) laser scanner. This handheld device — which uses a microchip that was created in his lab — generates real-time 3-D images of surface cell tissue, or more technically, ‘confocal images of epithelial tissue.’

Read the full Cockrell School of Engineering article HERE.

Since 2006, Zhang has continued to receive funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health (NIH), National Instruments and others. Recently, Zhang received nearly $1 million from NIH’s National Cancer Institute to fund his research initiatives over the next three years.

Zhang licensed his microchip technology with the UT Austin Office of Technology Commercialization, and created a spin-off company called NanoLite Systems Inc. The company was co-founded with Dr. Ting Shen who received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and later worked for McKinsey & Co. and Cisco Systems, but she left to become CEO of NanoLite.

“If we can take this [technology] to market and reduce that redo rate for cancer surgery by just a few percent, we are moving the needle in a lot of people’s lives,” Shen said.

Other NanoLite Systems News:

Read the recent ATI blog post on NanoLite Systems’ participation in the Texas Venture Labs Expo HERE.

On June 15, 2011, NanoLite Systems presented at the “LSI Q2 2011 Emerging Medical Technologies (EMT) Spotlight” event. Read the Businesswire PR that LSI released HERE.  

The National Science Foundation (NSF) commercialization partner Larta Institute also highlighted NanoLite Systems as an alumnus of the NSF SBIR program HERE.

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Savara Graduates from the Austin Technology Incubator

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

The Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), a nonprofit unit of The University of Texas at Austin, announced today that Savara Inc., an inhalation product development company, has graduated from the ATI Bioscience Incubator.

Savara is preparing supply for a Phase 1 clinical trial of its lead product (SAV-005), an inhaled antibiotic for the treatment of infections in Cystic Fibrosis patients.

“ATI was a critical partner as we raised funds to support the discovery phase of the company, most notably a $1.9 million investment from State of Texas’ Emerging Technology Fund.” said Rob Neville, CEO of Savara.

Respiratory drugs are the second largest therapeutic class and one of the fastest growing in the United States. Savara is well positioned to capitalize on this trend and is currently developing dry powder inhalation products that target niche therapeutic areas with high unmet medical need and high commercial opportunity.

“A transition from the laboratory into the clinic represents a significant accomplishment and validation of our team’s ability to execute.” said Neville.

The company is raising a Series B round of financing to complete its Phase 2 clinical trial.

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NanoLite Systems Participates in Texas Venture Week

Monday, May 9th, 2011

In a May 4 article for Statesman.com, staff writer Lisa Carter reported that Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) member NanoLite Systems participated in the Texas Venture Week event sponsored by the University Of Texas McCombs School Of Business.

The event featured entrepreneurs of 16 startup companies with technology based on research started at the University of Texas who promoted their companies to investors.

As cited in the Statesman.com article, NanoLite Systems co-founder and CEO Dr. Ting Shen said, “The event is a great forum for us to gain more visibility in the investors’ community. Austin is a dynamic place where a lot of great ideas are developed, and we’re a part of that.”

NanoLite Systems is an early stage medical device company developing innovative micro-imaging and sensing devices for real-time pathology i.e. cancer diagnostics, surgical guidance and treatment monitoring.

NanoLite Systems was formed as a spinoff from the University of Texas at Austin, licensing micro-chip technology from UT Austin in 2010.

NanoLite Systems received a National Science Foundation SBIR Award and a Medical Devices Grant from National Instruments within the first year of operation.

View the full article at

http://www.statesman.com/business/mccombs-event-highlights-innovation-entrepreneurship-tied-to-ut-1455156.html

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Austin Technology Incubator Recaps 3 Day Startup Successes as Sixth Event is Completed

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

The Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), a unit of the IC2 Institute of The University of Texas at Austin (UT), in partnership with 3 Day Startup, recapped its recent success with the sixth 3 Day Startup (3DS) event at UT.  3DS was envisioned and created by UT students to bring together 40 aspiring entrepreneurs to collaborate, over 60 intense hours, and emerge with a few solid business ideas and beginnings of companies.  The 320 3DS alumni from six UT events to date over the last three years have started ten technology companies – such as Famigo, Odoro, Moodfish and Hurricane Party – that have collectively raised over $3 million in financing. 

It will be exciting to watch what comes from this latest 3DS, where 37 ideas brought to the table Friday night netted out to five companies presented Sunday night.  Running April 15-17, the most recent 3DS drew a few dozen UT students from over 150 applicants and 15+ different majors.  More notably, the caliber of business executives in the room, and through-out the 60 hours this round indicates the value of what’s going on with 3DS.  These highly seasoned, proven business executives serve as volunteer mentors through the weekend (and usually beyond) and included Ethernet inventor, new UT professor Bob Metcalfe; acclaimed tech VC, and former journalist, Stewart Alsop; C-suite executives from Rackspace, Microsoft, uShip and Homeaway; University of Texas leaders; and directors of the Austin Technology Incubator, as well as other incubators like Capital Factory.

“Obviously, I’ve been completely enamored with what 3DS makes happen, getting behind the idea from inception to make sure ATI helped bring 3DS to life at UT Austin,” said Bart Bohn, ATI IT and Wireless director and founding mentor of 3DS.  “All prior events have been beyond words.  But this one; to see Bob Metcalfe, Ross Burhdorf and the other mentors in the room; for upwards to 20 hours each, just collaborating hands-on with the students and wanting to be so active in the company formation process….that blew me away.  And proves we have created something very unique.”

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UT Austin Nano Night Poster Competition 2011

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

UT Austin’s Center for Nano- and Molecular Science’s (CNM) Graduate Portfolio Program in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology held its 10th annual Nano Night on Thursday, April 14, 2011. Nano Night is an event showcasing graduate students’ and postdoctoral fellows’ research.  Nearly 40 nanoscience research posters were displayed on a variety of topics and findings. Competing students and postdocs answered questions from fellow researchers, faculty members and industry representatives. The Austin Technology Incubator was one of the event sponsors and ATI Directors Dr. Cindy WalkerPeach and Aruni Gunasegaram served as judges. The judges donated prizes to award to the winners.

View this link for the winners: http://www.tmi.utexas.edu/news-awards/nanonight2011%e2%80%94posterwinners/

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