Weekly Quick Hits (Research Triangle Park) – Week of August 21, 2023

Animal health company Zoetis opened a new facility in Durham that is expected to help the company meet increased demands from clients and expand its headcount. Money flowed into various N.C. life sciences coffers to fund various research projects, with NCBiotech doling out $2.75 million in grants and loans.

By Alex Keown | August 25, 2023

Quick Hits is BioBuzz’s weekly round up of all the life science news you don’t want to miss, in your region of interest. Don’t miss a beat; SUBSCRIBE to our weekly Quick Hits newsletter via LinkedIn (BioHealth Capital Region, Greater Philadelphia, Research Triangle Park) or get it delivered to your inbox every week.

Funding, Awards and Collaborations 

NCBiotech Awards $2.75 Million in Grants, Loans in Latest Quarter

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center awarded 31 grants and loans totaling $2,764,811 to universities, life sciences companies and non-profit organizations in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year. Financial awards went to four companies: 

• FreeFlow Medical Devices of Durham received a $500,000 Strategic Growth Loan to develop a hemodialysis catheter that uses a proprietary coating to reduce clotting, clogging and infection.
• Helixomer of Raleigh received $250,000 to advance a novel RNA-based anticoagulant therapy with reversal agents for intravenous use in human healthcare.
• Sonokine Biosciences of Chapel Hill received $100,000 to develop a catheter that enhances drug delivery to improve the treatment of primary and metastatic cancers.
• Upstream Biotechnology of Durham received $200,000 to demonstrate a gene-expression system in plants that responds to pathogen signals to release anti-microbial proteins only when needed, eliminating off-target side effects.
• Raleigh Biosciences of Raleigh received $200,000 to develop a platform that optimizes gene expression and transformation of elite plant germplasm using artificial intelligence, single-cell analysis, and spatial transcriptomics.

The awards will support bioscience research, technology commercialization, and entrepreneurship throughout North Carolina. The funding also helps universities and companies attract follow-on funding from other sources.

FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies Announces New Strategic Business Structure

FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, which has a significant presence in RTP, announced a new Strategic Business Unit (SBU) structure to provide tailored support to large- and small-scale biopharmaceutical customers with high-quality service and world-class performance by aligning unique service offerings and manufacturing capacities. The Large-Scale SBU is designed to meet the needs of clients who need access to high-volume cell culture production utilizing multiples of 20,000 L bioreactors. The Small-Scale SBU provides support for clients as they navigate the regulatory matrix of Pre-Clinical, Early Clinical Phase I and II, Late Clinical Phase III, as well as those progressing to Regulatory Approval and commercial production. 

UNC Researcher Receives NIMH Award to Investigate Treatment for Apathy

Miriam Sklerov, of the UNC Neurology Movement Disorders Center, won a National Institutes of Mental Health K23 award for her project, “Investigation of non-invasive brain stimulation for the treatment of apathy.” The team will recruit participants with Parkinson’s disease to investigate the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation on apathy using a behavioral task and EEG. Apathy, defined as a lack of enthusiasm or concern for previously exciting or interesting things, is a very common, debilitating, often refractory symptom, and is associated with poor outcomes in neurologic and psychiatric diseases.

UNC Neurology Researcher Nabs Funding to Develop New Brain Imaging Method

Ian Shih, Professor and Vice Chair for Research at the UNC Department of Neurology, has been awarded a $2.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to transform functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods. Shih’s project aims to improve brain activity mapping using an innovative imaging sampling scheme. The Shih lab aims to develop a 3D brain-wide imaging method called Steady-state On-the-Ramp Detection of INduction-decay signal with Oversampling (SORDINO). This sequence could hold the potential to address current fMRI issues while improving sensitivity and specificity.

Cygnus Technologies Receives 2023 R&D 100 Award for MockV RVLP Kit

Cygnus Technologies, part of Maravai LifeSciences, received a 2023 R&D 100 Award from R&D World Magazine in the Analytical/Test category for the MockV RVLP Kit. The MockV RVLP Kit enables bioprocess scientists to determine Retrovirus Particle (RVLP) removal during biopharmaceutical manufacturing in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell lines. The kit includes a biosafety level-1 (BSL-1) compatible RVLP stock solution and all the necessary reagents to quantify RVLP removal using a 96-well plate assay in less than one day.

Innatrix Raising Funds With Goal of Launching Its First Biopesticide in 2026

Biopesticide startup Innatrix is developing environmentally friendly products to control crop diseases and pests. The company hopes to secure $3 million in equity financing by the end of 2023 to support those plans. Innatrix uses peptides to block disease-promoting proteins, and RNA interference (RNAi) to deactivate genes essential to the survival of pests in crops. The funds will support field trials, product manufacturing, a regulatory package submission, and the expansion of its small staff.

Morrisville-based CEO Pitches for His Company’s Subsidiary

NightHawk Biosciences received an offer letter on Aug. 18 from CEO Jeffrey Wolf to acquire NightHawk’s subsidiary, Elusys Therapeutics, through Wolf’s newly-formed Starlight Acquisition Corp., the Triangle Business Journal reported. The total proposed consideration for the deal would exceed $45 million. The potential deal comes a little more than a year after NightHawk acquired Elusys, allowing NightHawk to pivot into biodefense.

Healthcare Company May Have to Close Raleigh Office, Cut 96 Jobs

Liberty Healthcare Corporation of North Carolina notified the N.C. Department of Commerce on Aug. 15 of its plans to potentially close a facility in Raleigh. If the facility shutters, about 96 employees would be laid off. The notice followed Liberty’s loss of a state contract. 

Sparta Biomedical Celebrates Prestigious Recognition in MedTech, Significant Milestone

Sparta Biomedical Inc., a pioneering medical technology company specializing in redefining osteoarthritis treatment, was included among the top 61 MedTech startups in the esteemed 2023 MedTech Innovator cohort and granted two essential utility patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. MedTech Innovator, a distinguished nonprofit accelerator and competition platform within the healthcare industry, identified Sparta Biomedical as an exceptional innovator in the realm of orthopedics.

The Retinal Degeneration Fund Makes Investment in Amber Bio

Today, the RD Fund (Retinal Degeneration Fund), the venture arm of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, participated in a $26 million Series Seed financing for Amber Bio to support its RNA-editing platform. Amber, a San Francisco-based startup, is leveraging a multi-kilobase RNA editing platform to expand the reach of treatable pathogenic variants.

New Products

Mycovia Pharmaceuticals Partner Jiangsu Hengrui Wins VVC Treatment Approval

Durham-based Mycovia Pharmaceuticals announced its partner Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals won approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration for Oteseconazole Capsules, an azole antifungal, indicated for the treatment of severe vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC). Oteseconazole Capsules are contraindicated for females of reproductive potential, pregnant and lactating women, patients with known hypersensitivity to active ingredients, excipients, and azoles. The approval of Oteseconazole Capsules was based on a Phase 3 study with 322 patients at 27 sites. The primary study endpoint was the proportion of subjects with therapeutic cures on Day 28. 

Asensus Surgical Reports First Hospital in Japan to Initiate Senhance Surgery Program

Medical device company Asensus Surgical announced that First Towakai Hospital has entered into an agreement to lease and utilize a Senhance Surgical System in their urology and gynecology centers and gastroenterology department. The Senhance Surgical System is designed to increase surgeon control through the addition of machine vision, Augmented Intelligence, and deep learning capabilities.

Altis Biosystems Launches RepliGut Planar InflammaScreen Services

Altis Biosystems, which is developing innovative, in vitro cell-based model systems for drug discovery, launched RepliGut Planar InflammaScreen Services. The services are a package of standardized assays specifically designed to test the intestinal epithelium response to multiple proinflammatory cytokines important for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) disease progression. 

These services improve screening capacity for potential therapeutics targeting IBD using a human-derived in vitro model that recapitulates the inflammatory response of the colon.

Real Estate News

Ribbon-cutting for New Zoetis Site to Expand Capabilities, Bring More Jobs to Durham

Animal health company Zoetis is opening a new building in Durham dedicated to diagnostics and biodevice research and development to meet the needs of veterinarians, livestock farmers, and pet owners. The expanded site will serve as the hub for Zoetis’ engineering and diagnostics work including device reliability testing. The new building features more than 78,000 square feet including 23,000 square feet of total lab space allotted for a biodevice engineering lab, biodevice science lab, diagnostics engineering lab, and diagnostics engineering lab space. Zoetis employs approximately 200 people at its site in Durham, more than half of whom are dedicated to the company’s R&D work.

Research Roundup

Target RWE Strengthens Industry Leadership Position with Novel RWE Approaches

Real-world evidence leader Target RWE, based in Durham, will present innovative research surrounding advanced methods in the field of epidemiology and statistics at the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology. Research highlights include:

• Characterizing the Distribution of Multiple Negative Control Outcome Risk Differences. Characterizing the results from multiple negative control outcome analyses as distribution has demonstrated value in synthesizing the information provided by these analyses.
• Orthogonalized Regression for Causal Inference: A Pharmacoepidemiologist’s Dream?  This research demonstrates that in addition to being the most statistically efficient of these methods, orthogonalized regression is the simplest method to implement using standard regression models available in all statistical packages.
• An Analytic Method to Weight Longitudinal Treatment Patterns for Visualization with Sankey Diagrams, Target RWE researchers propose a method to estimate treatment patterns that properly account for missing follow-up data in a population.

Target RWE will also present at a pre-conference educational session surrounding new research approaches to pragmatic randomized clinical trials.

People on the Move

Codetta Bio Appoints New VP of Product Management to Lead Commercial Strategy

Codetta Bio, which is developing advanced multiomic biomarker measurement tools, announced that Jeremy Lambert has joined the Durham-based company as Vice President of Product Management. In this role, Lambert will lead the development and execution of Codetta’s commercial strategy as the company brings its breakthrough multiomic solution to market. Most recently, Lambert served as Vice President of Product Management at Quanterix. He has also held product marketing roles at several other life sciences technology companies including Caliper Life Sciences and PerkinElmer.

BioAesthetics Adds Joseph Nixon to its Board of Directors

BioAesthetics Corporation, based in Durham, appointed Joseph Nixon to its board of directors. Nixon currently serves as Chief Financial Officer for Locus Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative antibacterial products. Before joining Locus in 2017, Nixon led the investment team at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, where he led or supervised investments in more than 60 early-stage life science companies. He previously held business development and licensing positions with Novartis and Alkermes, was Product Manager for a venture-backed bioinformatics start-up company, and helped launch start-up companies at the Cleveland Clinic.