Tag Archives: news updates

Intensity Therapeutics, Inc. Raises $10 Million Series A

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Intensity

 

 

Intensity Therapeutics has announced that it has secured $10 million in new capital from a Series A preferred stock financing. Participants included Batterson Venture Capital, VCapital, FastForward Innovations, SalvaRx Group PLC, Declan Doogan M.D. and Jim Mellon as well as several other accredited investors and family offices.

Lead by President and CEO Lewis H. Bender, the company is developing a proprietary cancer immunotherapy products. In a statement Bender said, “Our lead drug, INT230-6, has shown strong results in severe murine models of metastatic cancer via a combination of direct tumor killing and immune system activation.” According to Bender, “Proceeds will be used to fund operations, manufacture the clinical supplies, permit the needed regulatory filings and conduct a series of clinical trial cohorts in cancer patients with various tumor types.”

The company has also announced the addition of Dr. Decalan Doogan former Senior Vice President and Head of worldwide drug development at Pfizer and Emer Leahy, Ph.D., CEO of PsychoGenics will join Intensity’s Board of Directors. More information about Intensity Therapeutics can be found on the company’s website: www.intensitytherapeutics.com.

Traverse Biosciences Secures $500k Seed Financing

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Traverse Biosciences has announced that it has secured $500,000 in convertible debt financing to support operations and advance product development efforts. The seed financing was led by Excell Partners, with matching funds from a number of individual accredited angel investors. The Research Foundation for the State of New York (RF/SUNY) also participated in the financing, as part of an exclusive license and option agreement executed last year that gave Traverse Biosciences access to the relevant intellectual property for use in animal and human health.

Traverse Biosciences, which began when CEO Joseph Scaduto was serving as a BioEntrepreneur-in-Residence for the Center for Biotechnology, is working to commercialize its proprietary library of Stony Brook University invented chemically-modified curcumins for the treatment of chronic inflammatory conditions and cancers affecting humans and animals.

Read more about Traverse and the recent financing:

 

 

TheraSource LLC receives $3M SBIR Grant

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TheraSource LLC, a Feinstein Institute for Medical Research spin-out, has received a $3 million three-year Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will support the development of human ghrelin as an innovative treatment to alleviate health damage caused by unintentional radiation exposure.

TheraSource has been a client of the Center for Biotechnology and the organization is proud to have played an integral role in the helping the company advance their business and technology strategy. As noted by Diane Fabel, Director of Operations for the Center for Biotechnology, “The Phase II award for TheraSource is a significant landmark for the company and an important milestone for the region.”

Ping Wang, MD, founder of TheraSource and Chief of Scientific Officer (CSO) of the Feinstein Institute has stated “Human ghrelin has been investigated in clinical trials of other indications.  With our new findings, we will soon be able to file an Investigational New Drug application to US Food and Drug Administration,” said Dr. Wang. “TheraSource has received investments to fund its various projects and is seeking strategic partnerships towards the goal of clinical development and commercialization.”

For more details, read the company’s press release here.

Long Island Bioscience Hub Announces Next Funded Projects

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Accelerating the development of biomedical technologies

The Center for Biotechnology at Stony Brook University, on behalf of the Long Island Bioscience Hub (LIBH), has announced the recipients of the second round of funded projects under the Hub’s technology development and commercialization initiative. Funding for ten projects totaling $600,000 was awarded to applicants from the Hub’s partner institutions. Partner institutions include Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Feinstein Institute at Northwell Health Systems.

The technology development awards made available by the LIBH are specifically aimed at growing a pipeline of commercially promising biomedical technologies that can be out-licensed for further development or serve as the foundation for new company formations in the region. There are two tiers of funding, each with the goal of accelerating technology development to reach a critical development inflection point. Feasibility awards ($50,000) are designed to rapidly test the feasibility of new ideas in a “fail-fast-or-proceed” format, or to add value to existing intellectual property leading to new market applications. Proof-of-Concept Awards ($100,000) provide targeted, milestone driven support for further development, testing, and analysis of existing intellectual property.

A wide range of disciplines are represented in the project awards this cycle including biomedical engineering, chemistry, biochemistry, psychiatry, molecular genetics and microbiology, and pathology and dermatology.  Eight Feasibility awards and two Proof of Concepts awards have been funded this cycle. The recipients of this round of awards are:

Feasibility Awards

Therapeutic for Clostridium difficile antibiotic-associated diarrheal disease – Dr. James Bliska

Device for rapid, simple and highly parallel single-cell processing – Dr. Eric Brouzes

Developing a small molecule drug to treat systemic C. albicans infections – Dr. Nick Carpino

Next generation hedgehog inhibitor for invasive basal cell carcinoma – Dr. Jiang Chen

A Novel Strategy for Recombinant AAV Vector Production for Gene Therapy – Dr. Patrick Hearing

A tandem-integration-based multi-barcode method for high-throughput combinatorial screening – Dr. Sasha Levy

Novel CAIX Targeted Combination Inhibitor/PET tracer to treat patients with solid tumors – Dr. Peter Smith-Jones

Substrate-Assisted Tethered Inhibitors of LigA to Treat MDR Gonorrhea – Dr. Peter Tonge

Proof of Concept Awards

fMRI Dynamic Phantom for Improved Detection of Resting-State Brain Networks – Dr. Lilianne Mujica-Parodi

Development of SMASH technology as a next-gen sequencing diagnostic for congenital heart disease – Dr. Michael Ronemus

​“The announcement of this second cycle of awards from the Long Island Bioscience Hub under the NIH-REACH program is exemplary of the increasing commercially relevant research taking place in the region” said Clinton T. Rubin, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor, Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Director, Center for Biotechnology. “Coupled with the recent expansion of the Hub to include the Feinstein Institute and the announcement of our third “request for proposals,” the LIBH is steadily working toward its goal of accelerating the translation of these technologies from the bench to the bed side.”

The main goal of the LIBH is to foster the development of therapeutics, preventatives, diagnostics, devices and research tools emerging from LIBH partner institutions that address diseases within the NIH’s mission.

Download a PDF of the press release here.

 

 

Applied Research and Development Awards Announced

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The Center for Biotechnology has announced the recipients of the 2016-2017 Applied Research & Development (ARAD) awards. The ARAD Program is designed to help bridge the gap between the early-stage technology discovery and development capabilities of the academic community and the later-stage commercial development interests of the bioscience industry.

The program currently provides matching funds on a competitive basis to support collaborations between Stony Brook University faculty and NY State corporate partners in all areas of medical biotechnology. The primary interest is in supporting development of technologies that will help companies hit commercially relevant milestones, and that have the potential to positively impact the New York State economy. The projects funded include:

  • ICU Temporary Pacemaker – Dr. Wei Lin and Avery Biomedical Device, Inc.
  • Novel Synergistic and Pleiotropic Skin Brightening Agents – Dr. Sanford Simon and Biocogent, LLC
  • Continued In vivo Testing of Vaccine Candidates – Dr. Eckard Wimmer and Cogadenix, Inc.
  • Advanced Fistula-in-Ano Treatment Device – Dr. Tom Zimmerman and Pepper5, Inc.
  • Development of Nanoemulsion-PUFA-taxoids as Tumor-Targeted Chemotherapeutics – Dr. Iwao Ojima and TargaGenix, Inc.
  • Initial Pre-Clinical Safety Assessment of TRB-N0224 – Dr. Lorne Golub and Traverse Biosciences, Inc.
  • Evaluation of a Continuous Visible Light Disinfection System’s Ability to Reduce Bioburden and Subsequently the Incidence of Infections and Colonizations in an Active Patient Area – Dr. Annie Rohan and Vital Vio, Inc.

More information about the Applied Research & Development (ARAD) program, as well as all Center for Biotechnology Technology Development programs can be found here.