Posts Tagged ‘utech dorm room’

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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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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The University of Texas at Austin, Austin Technology Incubator and City of Austin Open Commercial Laboratory Facility

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

October 28, 2010, AUSTIN, Texas—The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy, the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) and the city of Austin have announced the creation of the UTech Dorm Room, a cooperative research laboratory designed to provide laboratory space for entrepreneurs to develop life-sciences technologies and evaluate their commercialization potential.

The UTech Dorm Room lab facility will be in the College of Pharmacy. While most labs at the university are devoted to the research of a particular faculty member, the UTech Dorm Room will enable bioscience entrepreneurs outside the university community to contractually reserve wet lab space for a period of time as they test and develop their technologies and potential products.

Individuals who have an idea for a life science technology may apply to the program through the college’s Drug Dynamics Institute (DDI), which will oversee the lab. The companies who use the lab will retain their intellectual property rights.

“Austin is a community of thinkers and bioscience entrepreneurs,” said Dr. Janet Walkow, director of the DDI. “People all over the city have ideas for novel products. Many of these great ideas are never fully developed due to a lack of lab space facilities, where new ideas can be tested.”

Wet labs have the facilities such as water, ventilation and built-in safety features needed to test chemicals, drugs or other biological matter. They can be expensive to outfit and maintain. That’s why the opportunity for entrepreneurs to “rent” this type of space is critical for developing ideas that could lead to discoveries, Walkow said.

The UTech Dorm Room hopes to encourage interaction between life-sciences start-up companies and the university faculty, to reduce barriers to commercialization and to accelerate local and economic development by opening up the university to life-sciences entrepreneurs.

“An educational component involving both undergraduate and graduate students will be an integral component of the Dorm Room effort,” said Lynn Crismon, dean of the College of Pharmacy. “Not only will this assist in developing students’ entrepreneurial skills, it also will allow them to work with laboratory quality management practices.”

The UTech Dorm Room is ATI’s demonstration project to provide a commercial laboratory environment to accelerate start-up commercialization, said Dr. Cindy WalkerPeach, ATI-Biosciences director. “What we learn from the project will be coalesced with information from other ‘best practices’ lab incubators as part of ATI’s Economic Development Administration grant to study a stand-alone facility to serve the Central Texas biosciences community.”

“All of us at the city of Austin are very pleased with this new partnership with the university’s College of Pharmacy and the Austin Technology Incubator,” said Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell.  “The life-sciences industry holds great promise as a future driver of Austin’s economy. Working together to provide new resources like the UTech Dorm Room to our local life-sciences entrepreneurs, we can help realize that promise sooner rather than later.”

“We’ve seen the success of our other technology incubator projects with the University of Texas at Austin,” said City Manager Marc Ott. “This is a worthwhile investment to provide that same kind of support to innovative thinkers in the life sciences who may not otherwise have access facilities that can help them transform their ideas into reality.”

About the Austin Technology Incubator

The Austin Technology Incubator is a nonprofit unit of The University of Texas at Austin that harnesses business, government and academic resources to provide strategic counsel, operational guidance and infrastructure support to its member companies to help them transition from early stage ventures to successful technology businesses.  Since its founding in 1989, ATI has worked with over 200 companies, helping them raise close to $750 million in investor capital.  ATI is a key program of the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas at Austin.  For more information, visit www.ati.utexas.edu.

About the Drug Dynamics Institute (DDI)

The Drug Dynamics Institute (DDI) is a collaborative research center that brings together extensive scientific expertise and experience and implements approaches to eliminate barriers to collaboration and commercialization.  This approach creates an interactive environment that fosters cooperative efforts between scientists and investigators, including collaborations with University of Texas faculty, Texas Institute for Drug Diagnostics and Development (TI3D) investigators, the Austin Technology Institute (ATI), Office of Technology and Commercialization (OTC) and numerous other academic and industry partners. Visit http://www.utexas.edu/pharmacy/utech.

About the University of Texas College of Pharmacy

The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy is one of the premier institutions of pharmaceutical education and research in the country.  The college is home to more than 500 professional students as well as more than 100 graduate students.  Faculty within the college oversee research supported by more than $13 million. Visit http://www.utexas.edu/pharmacy.

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